Division 


GN73  5 
.U/67 


Section 


( 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2019  with  funding  from 
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MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

NEW  YORK  •  BOSTON  •  CHICAGO  -  DALLAS 
ATLANTA  •  SAN  FRANCISCO 


MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  Limited 

LONDON  •  BOMBAY  •  CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 


THE  MACMILLAN  CO.  OP  CANADA,  Ltd. 

TORONTO 


Veddah  men  in  the  primaeval  forest,  offering  homage  to  their  head  man.  A  study  in  primitive 
Society.  Taken  in  the  interior  of  Ceylon  by  Skeen,  Photographer,  of  Columbo.  Mr.  Skeen  has  made 
a  series  of  photographic  studies  of  the  Veddah  people,  to  accomplish  which  he  found  it  necessary  to 
live  in  the  Veddah  country  for  months,  and  gain  the  personal  friendship  of  a  small  band  of  this 
extremely  sensitive  and  suspicious  people.  This  is  one  of  this  series,  reproduced  here  by  special  per¬ 
mission. 


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.ooiaai: 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC 

PAST 

m 


FEB  15  1924 
^folCAL 


A 


BY 

HARRIS  HAWTHORNE  WILDER,  Ph.D. 

PROFESSOR  OF  ZOOLOGY,  SMITH  COLLEGE 
NORTHAMPTON,  MASS. 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

1923 

All  rights  reserved 


PRINTED  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES  OF  AMERICA. 


Copyright,  1923, 

By  THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY. 


Set  up  and  electrotyped.  Published  June,  1923. 


To  My  Friend  and  Teacher 
John  Mason  Tyler 

Under  the  Spell,  of  Whose  Inspiration 
I  Have  Passed  Many  an  Hour 
In  the  Old  Days  at  Amherst 
And  Whose  Instruction,  thus  Pleasantly  Imparted, 
Has  Bountifully  Enriched  My  Maturer  Years. 


PREFACE 


At  the  present  time,  when  general  interest  is  directed 
to  the  events  of  the  distant  past,  when  the  daily  press 
teems  with  accounts  of  excavations,  and  with  specula¬ 
tions  concerning  the  relative  age  of  the  remains  found, 
when  sketches  of  early  life  in  caves  is  used  on  the  film 
for  comparison  with  modern  scenes,  or  to  explain  mod¬ 
ern  relationships,  and  when  from  the  modern  pulpit  we 
are  instructed  with  regard  to  prehistoric  man,  there  is 
grave  danger  lest  we  get  confused  in  our  chronologies. 
Moreover,  since  at  the  same  time  there  is  keen  popular 
interest  in  certain  extinct  animals  vastly  more  ancient 
than  any  type  of  Man,  all  of  which  latter  at  the  earliest 
lie  within  the  events  of  the  Ice  Ages,  the  danger  is  im¬ 
minent  of  confusing  our  time  values  and  considering 
our  immediate  ancestors  as  contemporaries  of  the 
Dinosaurs.  There  is  thus  the  greatest  need  of  a  chrono¬ 
logical  record  of  events,  beginning  with  the  time  of 
creatures  that  first  show  the  slightest  human  attributes, 
placed  in  orderly  sequence  and  divided  into  successive 
periods,  up  to  the  time  at  which  Man  began  to  record 
his  own  history,  an  actual  Outline  of  Prehistory. 

After  treating  of  the  general  subject  of  Prehistory, 
and  the  methods  of  reading  these  unwritten  annals, 
obtained  through  excavation,  the  actual  series  of  events 
are  considered,  as  they  have  occurred  in  the  different 

vii 


viii 


PREFACE 


continents,  the  aim  being  to  consider  the  entire  subject 
as  far  as  it  is  yet  known,  and  thus  to  furnish  a  foun¬ 
dation  upon  which  to  begin  our  recorded  history. 

It  is  my  pleasant  task  in  completing  this  Preface  to 
thank  my  many  colleagues  who  by  their  advice  and 
encouragement  have  assisted  me  in  my  work,  and  in 
this  I  wish  especially  to  mention  the  Staff  of  the 
American  Museum  of  Natural  History.  In  manuscript 
form  the  present  book  was  first  sent  to  Dr.  Henry 
Fairfield  Osborn,  and  after  him  in  turn  it  passed 
through  the  hands  of  others  of  the  Staff,  receiving 
especial  attention  from  Dr.  Nils  C.  Nelson,  who  even¬ 
tually  sent  me  many  pages  of  detailed  criticism,  which 
was  of  the  greatest  assistance  to  me  in  my  final  re¬ 
vision.  His  criticisms  are  referred  to  in  several  places 
in  the  book,  with  his  initials.  I  wish  also  to  express 
my  especial  thanks  to  Dr.  Clark  Wissler  and  Dr.  Louis 
Sullivan,  who  have  also  reviewed  parts  of  my  manuscript. 


Harris  Hawthorne  Wilder. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER 

I.  The  Chronology  of  Prehistory  . 

II.  Material  and  Methods . 

III.  European  Prehistory . 

IV.  Prehistory  of  Africa,  Asia  and  the  Oceanic 

Islands  . 

V.  Prehistory  of  the  Two  Americas  .... 

VI.  Known  Types  of  Prehistoric  Man  . 


PAGE 

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266 

283 

384 


lx 


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18 

19 

20 

21 

22; 

22' 

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25 

26 

27 

28 


LIST  OP  ILLUSTRATIONS 


Subdivisions  of  late  geological  chronology 

Glacial  advances  and  retreats . 

Section  across  the  valley  of  the  Somme  .... 
Detail  of  lower  level  terrace  of  the  preceding  . 
Rock-shelter  at  Les  Eyzies,  Dordogne 

The  Kesslerlocli,  near  Scliaffhausen . 

Layers  of  soil  at  Schweitzersbild,  near  Scliaffhausen 

Plan  of  the  cavern  at  Altamira . 

Section  of  the  Neandertal  cave,  near  Dtisseldorf  . 
Section  of  the  rabbit-burrow  at  Aurignac 
Views  of  shell-mound  in  Casco  Bay,  Maine  . 
Reconstruction  by  sections  of  a  Neolithic  manor- 

house  . 

A  modern  tree-house  in  New  Guinea . 

Reconstruction  of  a  lake-village  on  Lake  Zurich 
Reconstruction  of  separate  houses  of  the  lake-dwell¬ 
ers  . 

Sketch  map  of  Lakes  Biel  and  Neuchatel,  showing 

sites . 

Scliarraeh,  or  wallburg,  in  Lower  Austria 

Sketch  from  an  early  painting  of  Marietta,  Ohio, 

showing  earthworks . 

Indian  corn  field  at  Northampton,  Mass . 

Entrance  to  the  village  of  Menac,  showing  menhirs 
Menhirs  and  dolmens  at  Carnac,  Brittany 

Indian  interment  in  Massachusetts . 

Indian  interment  in  Massachusetts . 

Gallery  grave,  and  ground  plan  of  the  same 

The  acropolis  at  Tiryns,  restored . 

The  pueblo  of  Taos,  New  Mexico . 

The  cliff  palace,  Mesa  Verde,  National  Park,  Colo¬ 
rado  . 

Method  of  holding  an  eolith  .  . 

Representative  eoliths  ......... 


PAGE 

6 

17 

26 

27 

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41 
46 
50 
52 


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63 

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82 

84 

90 

91 
100 
110 
114 

116 

141 

142 


xi 


:ii 

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52 

53 

54 

55 

56 

57 

58 

59 

60 

61 

62 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

A  typical  Chellean  axe ;  side  and  edge  views  . 

Two  methods  of  mounting  an  Acheulian  axe 
A  typical  Acheulian  axe ;  side  and  edge  views  . 

A  typical  Mousterian  axe ;  side  and  edge  views 

Typical  Mousterian  points . 

Skull  of  cave  bear,  with  an  imbedded  Mousterian  axe 

Aurignacian  implements . 

Solutrean  implements  . 

Magdalenian  hints . . 

Magdalenian  implements  of  hone  and  horn 
Incised  sketch  of  a  bison,  upon  a  piece  of  limestone 

Wall  painting  of  a  charging  bison . 

Incised  drawing  of  a  horse  on  a  cavern  wall 
The  painted  pebbles  of  the  cavern  of  Mas  d’Azyl  . 
Painting  on  the  wall  of  a  cavern,  near  Cueva  de  la 

Vieja . 

Typical  Neolithic  axes  from  Longeville  .... 
Danish  axes  from  the  kitchen-middens  .... 

Neolithic  shards  from  Rudigheim . 

Neolithic  implements  connected  with  the  textile 

industry . 

A  stone  necklace  from  a  Neolithic  necropolis 
Decorated  Neolithic  pottery  from  the  Laibach  moor 
Two  methods  of  suspending  a  Neolithic  pot  . 
Neolithic  arrow  heads,  and  other  stone  implements 

Stonehenge ;  restored . 

Copper  implements  of  the  Cyprolithic  Age  in  Europe 
Daggers  and  sword-hilts  from  the  Earliest  Bronze 

Age  . 

Gold  bracelets  from  the  Bronze  Age  in  Scandinavia 
Bronze  implements  from  the  Middle  Bronze  Age 

in  Europe . 

Hair-needles  from  the  Late  Bronze  Age  in  Cen¬ 
tral  Europe  . 

Bronze  implements  from  the  Late  Bronze  Age  in 

Switzerland . 

Women’s  costume  in  Scandinavia  during  the  Early 

Bronze  Age  . 

Pattern  of  woman's  jacket  during  Early  Bronze  Age, 

Denmark  . 

Bronze  “lure”  from  the  Late  Bronze  Age,  Scandi¬ 
navia  . 

Bronze  situla  of  the  Hallstatt  Period  .  .  .  . 


PAGE 

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157 

159 

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94; 

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99 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 


xiii 

page 


Design  taken  from  a  bronze  sitnla . 259 

Site  of  La  Tene ;  shallows  of  Lake  Neucliatel  .  .  261 

Iron  lance-heads  and  other  implements  from  La  Tene  262 
Horn  implements  of  the  Iron  Age,  Norway  .  .  .  264 
Stone  arrows  and  lance-heads  from  the  Sahara  .  270 

Neolithic  axes  from  the  Sahara . 272 

The  “Webster  ruin”  in  Southern  Rhodesia  .  .  .  274 
Flint  axes.  Acheulian  type ;  from  Syria  ....  278 

Ameghino's  Diprothomo  platensis . 292 

Schwalbe’s  reorientation  of  Diprothomo  ....  292 

American  aborigines  in  a  native  quarry  workshop  .  297 

Shell  gorget  from  St.  Mary’s,  Missouri  ....  303 

Wampum  belt  of  the  Onondaga s . 304 

Plate  showing  Indians  wearing  copper  ornaments  .  307 

Navajo  blanket  loom . 314 

Prehistoric  shards,  showing  the  prints  of  stitches  .  318 

Iroquoian  pottery . 320 

Types  of  chipped  stone  implements . 326 

Types  of  pots . 329 

Iviva  of  the  community  of  Tyuonyi,  New  Mexico  335 

The  pueblo  of  Tesuque,  New  Mexico . 337 

Ruins  of  one  of  the  temples  at  Tikal,  Guatemala  .  343 

Carved  lintel  from  a  tempel  at  Yaxchilan,  Guatemala  347 

Mound  at  Prairie  du  Chien,  Wisconsin . 356 

The  Gallway  Mound,  Tennessee . 357 

Mound  in  Allamakee  Co.,  Iowa . 358 

Mound  in  Jo  Daviess  Co.,  Illinois  (vertical  section)  358 

Mound  in  Jo  Daviess  Co.,  Illinois  (ground  plan)  .  358 


The  Dighton  Rock,  in  Taunton  River,  Massachusetts  362 
Portion  of  the  “winter  count”  of  Lone-Dog,  a  Dakota  366 
Portion  of  a  mnemonic  song,  used  by  the  O  jib  was  .  369 

Inscription  on  a  small  boulder  in  West  Wrentham, 


Mass . 371 

Inscription  transcribed  directly  from  the  boulder 
shown  in  Fig.  94a . 372 


Stele  from  Quirigua,  covered  with  glyphs  ....  374 

Transcriptions  of  glyphs  from  Palenque,  Yucatan  .  376 

The  two  crania  from  the  grotto  of  Spy,  Belgium  .  .  392 

Site  of  the  excavation  at  Krapina,  Jugoslavia  .  .  397 

Plans  of  the  cave  at  La  Chapelle-aux-Saints,  Correze  402 
Cross  section  of  the  cave  at  La  Cliapelle-aux-Saints, 

Correze . 403 

The  skull  of  La  Chapelle-aux-Saints,  Correze  .  .  405 


xiv 

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107 

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110 

111 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

Skeleton  from  Baousse-Rousse,  near  Monaco  (Cro- 

Magnon  type)  . 

The  double  grave  from  Baousse-Rousse  (Grimaldi 

type)  . 

The  skull  fragment  from  Briix,  Czechoslovakia 
The  skull  fragment  from  Brno  (Briinn)  Czechoslo¬ 
vakia  . 

The  skull  fragment  from  Egisheim,  near  Colmar, 

Alsace . 

The  nests  of  skulls  found  at  Ofnet,  near  Munich  . 
The  mandible  from  Mauer,  near  Heidelberg  . 

The  skull  fragments  from  Piltdown,  Surrey  . 
Restoration  of  the  skull  of  Pithecanthropus  . 
Superposed  crania  of  Pithecanthropus,  Neandertal 

and  Hylobates,  viewed  from  above . 

Hypothetical  form,  showing  an  early  ancestor  of  Man 


page 

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422 

428 

430 

432 

434 

437 

444 

446 

447 
453 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


Man  s  Prehistoric  Past 


CHAPTER  I 

THE  CHRONOLOGY  OF  PREHISTORY 

Prehistory  vs.  History — The  Relation  of  Geology  to  Prehistory 
— Sketch  of  Tertiary  Times — The  Great  Ice  Age — Glacial 
Action,  and  Its  Results — Chronology  of  the  Ice  Age — Post¬ 
glacial  Times — The  Work  of  the  Post-glacial  Rivers  and 
Lakes — River  Terraces — Eolian  Deposits  ;  Loess. 

1.  Prehistory  vs.  History. — The  philosopher,  to  what¬ 
ever  race  or  nation  of  men  he  may  belong,  cannot  pro¬ 
gress  very  far  into  the  past  without  finding  the  tradi¬ 
tions  concerning  the  origin  of  his  people  unsatisfying. 
Differing  among  themselves  as  these  traditions  may,  they 
all  show  the  well-known  characteristics  of  folklore;  they 
make  preposterous  claims  of  divine  progenitors ;  they 
violate  the  most  elementary  natural  laws  in  the  events 
they  describe.  In  one  group  of  these  stories  the  first  men 
dwelt  beneath  the  ground  in  a  subterranean  cave-world, 
and  reached  the  surface  by  climbing  up  the  roots  of  a 
great  tree;  in  another,  men  are  moulded  out  of  dirt 
or  clay  by  the  fingers  of  a  superhuman  artificer,  or  are 
transformed  from  animals  by  an  impossible  sort  of  meta¬ 
morphosis.  There  is  always  an  extraordinary  lack  of 
time  prospective,  and  all  the  events  from  the  creation  to 
the  beginning  of  history  are  crowded  into  a  few  hundred 
years  at  the  most.  This  time  is  filled  up  with  fabulous 

1 


MAjVS  PREHISTORIC  past 


‘) 


events,  among  which  appear,  drawn  to  an  heroic  size, 
certain  characters  whose  existence  as  actual  men  is  al¬ 
most  entirely  submerged  in  a  sea  of  legend. 

A  history  like  this  fills  in,  for  most  peoples,  the  entire 
period  of  human  existence  from  the  beginning,  and  it 
was  thus  in  a  moment  of  insight  far  beyond  even  the 
academic  position  of  his  day  that  Horace  exclaimed : 

“Vixere  fortes  ante  Agamemnona 
Multi;  sed  omnes  illacrimabiles 
Urgentur  ignotique  tonga 
Node,  carent  quia  vate  sacro.”  1 

The  vatis  sacer  of  the  Roman  poet,  a  compound  of 
priest,  minstrel  and  improvisator,  was  of  course  t*he  his¬ 
torian,  and  the  thought  was  that  the  oblivion  of  the  long 
past  was  due,  not  to  any  lack  of  noteworthy  and  valorous 
deeds,  but  solely  because  the  means  had  been  wanting  for 
permanently  recording  these  events. 

It  is  thus  the  art  of  writing,  with  its  power  of  accu¬ 
rately  and  permanently  recording  the  details  of  evenis, 
that  separates  History  from  Prehistory,  and  sets  the 
boundary  between  the  two  at  neither  a  definite  date,  nor1 
at  a  definite  stage  of  material  culture.  Primitive  peoples 
like  the  Polynesians,  or  the  North  American  Indians,  can 
readily  learn  to  read  and  write,  and  an  entire  tribe  may 
become  literate  in  a  single  generation  ;  while,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  excavations  of  recent  years  have  revealed  many 
extensive  civilizations,  which  have  attained  culture  in 
their  art  and  architecture,  and  refinement  in  their  mode 
of  living,  and  have  yet  never  developed  anything  but  the 

1  Many  brave  men  have  lived  before  Agamemnon  but.  all  un¬ 
wept  for  and  unknown,  are  overwhelmed  in  the  long  night  (of 
oblivion)  because  they  lack  the  sacred  bard. 


THE  CHRONOLOGY  OF  FAST  HISTORY 


crudest  means  of  recording  thought  by  written  inscrip¬ 
tions.  They  have  thus  remained  “ignoti  el  illacrima - 
biles”  until  the  buried  vestiges  of  their  civilization  have 
been  uncovered  by  the  spade  of  the  archeologist. 

One  of  the  first  uses  to  which  writing  has  been  put, 
when  introduced  into  a  tribe,  is  to  record  its  body  of 
tradition,  long  transmitted  orally,  and  held  in  the  mem¬ 
ory  of  the  learned  men,  and  these,  by  the  addition  of 
the  more  recent  records,  form  a  document  which  passes 
gradually  from  an  impossible  and  marvelous  past  into 
contemporaneous  and  matter-of-fact  history. 

In  a  history  constructed  in  this  way  it  is  inevitable* 
that  the  traditional  part  should  be  full  of  marvels,  while, 
aside  from  an  occasional  exaggeration  favorable  to  the 
nation  of  the  narrator,  the  contemporary  part  should  be 
quite  possible.  The  Song  of  Pentaur,  inscribed  on  the 
walls  of  the  Ramesseum  at  Thebes,  is  a  document  con¬ 
temporary  with  the  events  it  chronicles,  and,  except  for 
certain  diplomatic  exaggerations  may  be  taken  as  literal 
history;  the  Iliad  and  Odyssey,  on  the  other  hand,  had 
been  passed  from  mouth  to  mouth  for  many  generations 
before  the  introduction  of  writing  into  Greece,  and,  what 
with  the  imperfections  of  memory,  and  the  temptations 
to  glorify  the  past,  had  become  so  incrusted  with  legend 
that,  although  they  preserve  for  us  invaluable  pictures 
of  an  early  civilization,  these  poems  cannot  be  regarded 
as  historical  documents. 

Thus  the  date  that  most  surely  sets  the  bounds  between 
the  history  and  the  prehistory  of  a  given  people  is  that 
at  which  the  art  of  writing  was  introduced.  History 
depends  upon  written  records,  or  at  least  upon  inscrip¬ 
tions;  prehistory  reads  past  events  from  ruined  struc- 


4 


MAN'S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


tures,  from  flints  and  shards,  from  bones  and  teeth.  If 
a  prehistoric  people  were  far  advanced  in  culture,  the 
archeologist  finds  the  remains  of  a  beautiful  architec¬ 
ture,  like  the  lion  gate  at  Mycenae  or  the  temples  of 
Yucatan  and  Guatemala;  if  less  advanced,  they  would 
be  represented  by  tools  and  weapons  of  bronze,  orna¬ 
ments  of  gold  and  silver,  and  fragments  of  pottery. 
Cruder  people  still  would  leave  behind  flint  implements 
showing  various  degrees  of  skill  in  their  manufacture, 
while  beings  not  yet  capable  of  making  or  handling  even 
these  pitiable  works  of  art  would  leave  the  records  of 
their  lives  and  activities  in  their  own  bones  which,  occa¬ 
sionally  preserved,  form  records  pregnant  with  mean¬ 
ing  to  those  who  learn  to  decipher  them. 

Since,  now,  the  bounds  between  history  and  prehis¬ 
tory  are  set  by  so  arbitrary  an  event  as  the  introduc¬ 
tion  of  a  certain  definite  art,  an  art  easily  acquired 
from  others,  and  requiring  only  some  slight  degree  of 
culture  to  use  effectively,  and  since  even  a  high  degree 
of  culture  may  develop  and  continue  without  any  de-5 
velopment  in  the  direction  of  this  particular  art,  it  fol¬ 
lows  that  the  date  of  transition  from  the  one  to  the 
other,  the  date  of  the  introduction  of  the  art  of  writing, 
is  wholly  a  relative  one.  Probably  the  first  men  in  the 
world  to  develop  the  ability  to  record  thought  were  the 
early  Egyptians,  who  are  thought  by  Breasted  to  have 
actually  been  able  to  write  during  the  last  centuries  of 
the  fifth  millenium  before  Christ,  or  seven  thousand 
years  ago.  In  comparison  with  this  distant  date,  the 
earliest  writing  of  the  only  possible  rivals,  the  Mesopo¬ 
tamians,  are  more  recent,  and  thus  while  the  inhabitants 
of  the  Nile  valley  had  already  passed  into  the  definite 


THE  CHRONOLOGY  OF  PAST  HISTORY  5 

historic  stage,  those  between  the  Tigris  and  Euphrates 
were  still  ‘ 1  oppressed  by  the  long  night,  ’  ’  and  unable  to 
make  permanent  records  of  their  “heroes  before  Aga¬ 
memnon.  ’  ’ 

The  ancient  Britons  were  a  prehistoric  people  when 
first  met  by  Julius  Caesar  upon  the  sea  beach  at  Dover; 
and  so  was  the  entire  population  of  the  New  World  at 
the  time  of  Columbus.  Thus  here  in  America  “pre¬ 
columbian”  and  “  pre-historic  ”  are  synonyms,  while 
the  men  of  northern  Europe  first  came  into  history  at 
the  hands  of  the  Romans. 

2.  The  Relation  of  Geology  to  Prehistory. — The  most 
fundamenal  need  in  the  study  of  prehistory  is  a  means 
by  which  some  form  of  chronology  may  be  established, 
so  that  the  events  ascertained  from  the  excavation  and 
examination  of  the  records  may  be  arranged  in  their 
sequence  relative  to  one  another.  A  natural  background, 
upon  which  these  events  may  be  thrown,  is  furnished 
by  the  science  of  geology,  which  has  established  with 
some  exactness  the  chronological  sequence  of  the  changes 
of  the  earth’s  surface,  and,  in  Europe  and  North  Amer¬ 
ica  especially,  has  divided,  quite  in  detail,  the  period  of 
time  contemporaneous  with  the  first  appearance  and 
early  development  of  man.  This  science  thus  supplies 
us  at  the  outset  with  a  mass  of  data  of  the  greatest  im¬ 
portance  to  the  prehistorian,  which  will  serve  as  a  basis 
upon  which  the  more  special  chronology  of  human  pre¬ 
history  may  be  established,  especially  since  it  furnishes 
the  details  of  the  climate,  the  characteristic  animals  and 
plants,  and  the  topographical  configuration  of  the  land, 
at  each  stage.  It  will  thus  be  well  to  review  here  the 
events  of  the  more  recent  geological  history,  considering 


6 


MAN'S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


especially  those  facts  which  may  prove  of  importance  in 
the  present  inquiry. 


G4<aC<Cfc£,->  pQtioit,Tnodirr)) 

pL€lSTQCm(G-LoLCiaLj''lcii  <XpJ 

VL i oceve 


tn  10  c e  ne 


0 L l  cene 


E.o  cevt 


C  retcLceou-s 


Fig.  1.  Diagram  of  late  geological  chronology,  showing  the  subdivisions  of  the 

Tertiary  and  Quaternary  Periods. 

3.  Sketch  of  Tertiary  Times. — During  the  Cretaceous 
Period,  a  long  subdivision  of  time  immediately  pre- 


THE  CHRONOLOGY  OF  PAST  HISTORY 


n 

i 


ceding  the  Tertiary,  the  climate  of  the  entire  Northern 
Hemisphere  was  tropical,  nearly  or  quite  to  the  Pole. 
The  earth  was  clothed  with  a  luxurious  vegetation,  in 
which  palms  and  cycads  prevailed,  covered  with  trail¬ 
ing  vines,  and  interspersed  with  enormous  ferns. 

This  climate  continued  well  into  the  Tertiary,  but  there 
eventually  came  the  unmistakable  signs  of  a  gradual 
cooling.  Among  the  palms  and  cycads  there  appeared 
such  plants  as  the  myrtle,  the  laurel,  and  the  fig,  plants 
that  require  a  warm  climate  but  cannot  survive  a  con¬ 
tinuous  high  temperature.  Soon,  also,  came  hardwood 
trees  of  quite  modern  types:  the  oak,  beech,  chestnut, 
willow  and  various  species  of  sassafras,  a  tree  now  con¬ 
fined  wholly  to  America,  but  then  abundant  everywhere. 
In  the  Miocene  a  few  conifers  appeared,  interspersed 
among  the  palms,  while  the  cycads  disappeared,  the  cli¬ 
mate  being  now  too  cool  for  these  extremely  tropical 
plants ;  and  still  later  the  palms  were  lost,  and  the  entire 
flora  became  that  of  a  cool  temperate  region. 

This  movement,  however,  did  not  stop  with  the  tem¬ 
perate  climate  of  the  present  day,  but  became  decidedly 
cold,  and  in  succession  the  vegetation  became  sub-arctic, 
and  arctic,  and  then  absolutely  disappeared,  when, 
finally,  the  country  became  sealed  up  in  a  covering  of 
ice,  well-nigh  continental  in  extent,  quite  as  is  the 
case  with  Greenland  at  the  present  time.  Thus,  the 
Tertiary  Age  passed  into  the  Quaternary. 

In  this  gradual  cooling  of  the  Northern  Hemisphere, 
which  involved  the  entire  Tertiary,  a  period  of  more  than 
three  million  years,  the  extreme  north  was  always  a  little 
in  advance.  Successively,  the  changes  from  tropical  to 
sub-tropical,  warm  temperate,  temperate,  cool-temper- 


8 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


ate,  sub-arctie,  and  arctic,  began  at  the  north  and  spread 
southward,  until,  at  the  maximum  cold  of  the  Glacial 
Epoch,  the  coating  of  ice  extended  from  the  Pole  half¬ 
way  to  the  Equator.1 

While,  corresponding  to  the  gradual  change  of  cli¬ 
mate  which,  in  the  Northern  Hemisphere,  ran  the  whole 
gamut  from  tropical  to  arctic,  the  vegetation  succes¬ 
sively  assumed  the  phases  just  described,  the  changes 
in  the  fauna  were  no  less  marked,  and  are  of  the  great¬ 
est  importance  in  the  present  inquiry.  That  most  of  the 
early  phases  in  the  development  of  mammals,  the  class 
of  vertebrates  to  which  man  belongs,  took  place  in  re¬ 
gions  still  unknown  geologically,  is  a  conviction  that 
unwillingly  forces  itself  upon  us,  since,  at  the  beginning 
of  the  Eocene,  the  first  phase  of  the  Tertiary  Epoch, 
numerous  well-differentiated  members  of  this  class  sud¬ 
denly  appear.  All  through  the  enormously  long  preced¬ 
ing  epoch,  the  Cretaceous,  the  deposits  yet  known,  cov¬ 
ering  a  part  of  the  north  temperate  zone,  yield  very  little 
evidence  of  mammalian  history ;  while  previous  to  the 
Cretaceous  there  are  known  only  a  few  tiny  jaws  of 
creatures  of  the  size  of  mice  or  rats,  which  show  definite 
mammalian  characters  mingled  with  those  of  reptiles, 
as  though  these  were  the  forms  still  in  transition  from 
the  one  to  the  other.  But  between  this  beginning  in  the 
Jura-Trias,  and  the  Eocene,  with  its  sudden  appear¬ 
ance  of  typical  placental  mammals,  well  differentiated 
into  most  of  the  modern  Orders,  are  interposed  the  mil¬ 
lions  of  years  of  the  long  Cretaceous  and  the  strata  of 

1  To  about  50°  north  latitude  in  the  Eastern  Hemisphere,  and 
to  about  40°  in  the  Western,  but  with  a  very  irregular  southern 
boundary. 


THE  CHRONOLOGY  OF  PAST  HISTORY 


9 


this  epoch  thus  far  known  give  us  no  hint  of  the  inter¬ 
vening  history.  Where  the  events  took  place  which  grad¬ 
ually  developed  small  reptilian  forms  with  mammalian 
tendencies  into  the  large  and  important  class  as  it  mani¬ 
fested  itself  in  the  Eocene,  can  only  be  surmised,  but  as 
this  appearance  took  place  simultaneously  both  in  Eu¬ 
rope  and  America,  in  fact  over  the  entire  north  tem¬ 
perate  zone,  it  is  extremely  likely,  first,  that  the  phe¬ 
nomenon  was  due  to  a  migration  from  elsewhere,  and 
secondly,  that  this  unknown  center  of  dispersion  must 
have  been  about  equally  distant  from  both  northern 
continents.  Naturally  but  one  region  of  the  globe  ful¬ 
fils  this  condition,  namely,  the  Polar  region,  which  we 
are  accustomed  to  associate,  not  with  life,  but  with  death 
and  absolute  sterility;  yet  during  the  Cretaceous  the 
extreme  North,  even  the  Pole  itself,  possessed  a  warm, 
and  even  tropical  climate,  and  was  thus  very  fit  to  be 
the  cradle  of  the  placental  mammals. 

Be  this  as  it  may,  points  impossible  either  to  verify 
or  refute  until  the  strata  of  the  extreme  North  become 
better  known,  mammals  of  many  sorts,  although  still 
primitive  and  generalized,  appeared  in  numbers  at  the 
beginning  of  the  Eocene,  the  ancestors  of  our  present- 
day  groups.  Aside  from  primitive  rodents,  carnivores, 
and  insectivores,  there  were  numerous  types  of  hoofed 
mammals,  in  which  could  readily  be  seen  the  early  forms 
later  to  be  differentiated  in  the  rhinoceroses,  the  camels, 
and  the  horses  of  modern  times.  Of  more  special  interest 
to  us  there  were  numerous  early  Primates,  small  arbo¬ 
real  forms  with  the  general  appearance  of  lemurs,  such 
as  the  more  generalized  lemuroid,  N otharctus,  and  the 
more  specialized  Anaptomor  pints,  a  half-human  kobold 


10 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


of  squirrel-size  and  ridiculous  appearance,  yet  one  in 
which,  together  with  his  living  relative,  Tarsius,  some 
have  seen  the  stem  leading  up  to  man  at  its  inception. 

Through  the  later  subdivisions  of  the  Tertiary  may 
be  followed  the  history  of  the  development  of  modern 
types;  so  that  the  fauna  of  each  period  became  grad¬ 
ually  more  and  more  like  that  of  the  present  time.  In 
the  Miocene  true  anthropoid  apes,  allied  to  the  gibbons 
and  chimpanzees,  appeared  in  Europe,  and  the  famous 
transition  form,  ape-man  or  man-ape,  Pithecanthropus , 
of  which  certain  important  fragments  were  found  in 
Java  in  1891,  was  probably  of  Pliocene  date. 

Toward  the  end  of  the  Tertiary,  too,  come  other  in¬ 
dications  of  the  presence  of  activities  of  at  least  some 
extremely  intelligent  ape,  if  not  something  more  human. 
Numerous  flint  fragments  occur,  bearing  curious  chip- 
pings  difficult  to  explain  as  the  result  of  any  of  the 
inorganic  forces,  yet  easy  to  understand  if  they  had 
been  grasped  by  hands  like  ours,  and  used  for  the  cruder 
motions  of  striking,  prying,  or  cutting,  the  so-called 
Eoliths.  There  have  been  found  also  bones  with  curious 
scratches  upon  them,  not  the  marks  of  the  teeth  or  claws 
of  the  Carnivora,  and  pointing  to  the  same  conclusion. 
In  short,  although  it  would  be  too  much  to  assert  that 
man,  as  we  know  him,  existed  during  the  Tertiary,  there 
is  yet  the  feeling  of  man’s  near  advent,  and  more  and 
more  the  visible  impressions  of  a  new  and  active  force, 
beginning  to  record  his  autobiography. 

4.  The  Great  Ice  Age. — When,  after  the  long  cooling 
of  the  Tertiary,  the  northern  portion  of  the  world  finally 
succumbed  to  the  cold,  and  lay  under  the  pall  of  the 
glacial  ice,  it  was  by  no  means  a  period  of  stagnation, 


THE  CHRONOLOGY  OF  PAST  HISTORY 


11 


devoid  of  results.  Wherever  the  land  sloped,  especially 
along  the  great  mountain  ranges,  the  ice,  like  a  layer  of 
some  viscid  substance,  was  slowly  slipping  and  flowing, 
grinding  off  the  rocks,  transporting  soil  and  small  pieces 
of  stone  to  the  valleys  and  disposing  of  these  materials 
in  the  form  of  nicely  rounded  hillocks,  to  form,  later  on, 
vast  areas  of  rolling  country,  covered  with  gravel.  More 
than  once,  perhaps  even  five  times,  as  some  say,  during 
the  four  hundred  thousand  to  five  hundred  thousand 
years  of  this  Glacial  Period,  the  ice  retreated  to  the  far 
north,  leaving  bare  great  stretches  of  country  which  were 
soon  populated  from  the  south  by  those  plants  and  ani¬ 
mals  that  were  adapted  to  a  cool  climate;  and  here, 
during  the  later  retreats  of  the  ice,  man  himself,  or  a 
creature  not  unlike  the  man  of  the  present  day,  came 
also,  to  hunt  over  the  plains  or  to  shelter  himself  in  the 
caves.  These  retreats  were  very  slow,  too  slow  for  man 
or  animal  to  notice  it  in  a  single  generation,  and  these 
interglacial  periods ,  as  they  are  called,  were  of  suffi¬ 
cient  duration  to  allow  man  to  live  upon  the  reclaimed 

territory  for  an  epoch  at  least  as  long  as  that  of  the 

» 

entire  known  human  history  before  a  renewed  approach 
of  the  cold  gradually  compelled  him  to  migrate  again 
beyond  its  reach. 

Certain  large  territories,  too,  extending  for  quite  a 
distance  north,  seem  for  some  reasons  never  to  have  been 
covered  with  the  ice ;  and  thus  the  ice  limit  was  not  a 
straight  line,  but  a  very  irregular  one,  with  large  free 
areas  running  north,  and  long  capes  of  ice  dipping  south. 
These  free  areas  included,  for  example,  the  west  coast  of 
France,  nearly  all  of  Alsace,  and  large  parts  of  Ger¬ 
many  and  Austria,  and  all  such  were  never  ice-covered, 


12 


MAN'S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


and  thus  were  continually  habitable  by  early  man.  In 
these  ice-free  areas  there  was  found  an  abundance  of 
the  larger  mammals.  One  species  of  European  elephant, 
indeed,  the-  Elephas  antiquus,  adapted  only  to  a  warm 
country,  was  not  able  to  endure  the  first  approach  of  the 
cold,  and  died  out  at  the  beginning  of  the  period ;  but  its 
place  was  taken  by  the  allied  Eleplias  primigenius ,  the 
hairy  mammoth,  whose  long  coat  of  hair  fitted  it  for  the 
change  of  climate.  The  wild  horse  ( Equus  antiquus) 
and  the  reindeer  ( Tarandus  rangifer)  wandered  over 
the  plains  in  vast  herds;  and  there  were  also  two  large 
species  of  ruminants,  the  one  ( Bison  europceus )  a  near 
relative  of  the  American  bison,  the  other  the  “ur,”  or 
“auerochs”  (Bos  primigenius) ,  whose  blood  still  flows 
in  certain  breeds  of  our  domestic  cattle,  notably  the  Hol¬ 
stein.  In  the  caverns  on  the  mountain  sides  lurked  the 
cave  bear  and  cave  hyena  ( Ursus  spelceus  and  Hycena 
spelcea)  formidable  foes  of  early  man;  the  first  was  per¬ 
haps  identical  with  the  “grizzly  bear”  of  the  Rocky 
Mountains,  and  the  second  was  much  like  the  African 
hyena,  long  exterminated  in  Europe. 

In  the  caverns  also,  disputing  the  right  of  domicile  with 
the  bear  and  hyena,  there  were  found  during  the  later 
portion  of  the  Ice  Age  several  different  man-like  forms. 
Some  were  veritable  ape-men,  with  overhanging  brows, 
projecting  jaws,  and  with  the  chin  sloping  back  from  the 
base  of  the  lip.  They  crouched  as  they  walked,  with 
head  thrust  forward  and  back  bowed  ;  their  legs,  of  almost 
human  proportions,  were  curved.  Others  shared  a  close 
approximation  to  the  modern  type,  and  it  is  evident  that 
the  latter  part  of  the  Ice  Age  witnessed  the  appearance 
in  Europe  of  men  having  the  bodily  characteristics  of 


THE  CHRONOLOGY  OF  PAST  HISTORY 


13 


the  present  species.  The  ape-men,  distinctly  lower  and 
less  able  to  cope  with  their  superior  ally  in  the  struggle 
for  existence,  died  out  during  this  Age,  and  their  dis¬ 
appearance,  together  with  that  of  the  transition  forms 
of  the  late  Tertiary,  gave  man  the  complete  isolation 
from  other  animals  so  long  emphasized  by  earlier  nat¬ 
uralists  and  philosophers  as  proof  of  his  separate  origin. 

What  relation  was  sustained  in  these  early  times  be¬ 
tween  these  various  types  of  intelligent  primates  we  do 
not  know ;  but  they  all  seem  to  have  used,  and  probably 
fabricated,  the  various  stone  implements  characteristic 
of  the  period,  which  were  designedly  shaped  and  repre¬ 
sented  a  great  improvement  over  the  eoliths  of  the  Ter¬ 
tiary.  Perhaps  the  highest  type  only  gained  the  knowl¬ 
edge  of  the  use  and  control  of  fire ;  perhaps  the  lower 
types  were  looked  upon  by  the  others  as  unlike  them¬ 
selves,  and  even  hunted  as  food ;  of  these  dim  times  we 
have  at  present  but  a  comparatively  small  number  of 
remains;  but  information  is  increasing  almost  daily,  and 
we  may  ultimately  find  an  answer  to  these  and  many 
such  questions  which  suggest  themselves. 

5.  Glacial  Action  and  Its  Results. — A  great  ice-sheet, 
lying  along  a  step  slope  between  mountains,  constantly 
flows  downward,  although  at  a  very  slow  rate.  Con¬ 
tinually  reinforced  by  the  precipitation  of  moisture  over 
the  mountain  tops  above  it,  it  acts  like  a  slow-flowing 
viscous  mass,  of  great  weight  and  power,  moving  under 
the  impulse  of  gravity.  Where  there  is  a  change  in  the 
angle  of  descent,  so  that  the  mass  has  to  bend,  as  where 
flowing  over  a  crag,  it  develops  numerous  tranverse  As¬ 
sures  or  cracks,  familiar  to  students  of  glaciers  under  the 
name  of  crevasses.  As  such  a  mass  drags  itself  between 


14 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


the  rocky  sides  of  mountains,  pieces  of  all  sizes  be¬ 
come  detached  from  the  sides  of  the  ravines  and  drop  on 
the  surface  of  the  ice,  through  which  they  gradually  settle 
until  they  reach  the  bottom.  Here  they  come  in  contact 
with  the  glacial  bed,  and,  held  firmly  in  the  ice,  as  by 
a  hand,  they  rub  against  the  underlying  rock,  one  or 
both  of  the  contact  surfaces  being  ground  in  accordance 
with  the  relative  hardness  of  the  two.  An  ice  sheet  is, 
then,  sometimes  more  than  a  viscous,  flowing  mass :  it  is 
like  a  gigantic  piece  of  sandpaper,  its  under  surface 
studded  with  rocks  of  all  sizes,  which  are  held  in  the 
ice  with  considerable  firmness,  and  it  is  largely  through 
their  agency  that  the  surface  over  which  the  ice  flows 
becomes  cut  down  and  denuded  of  all  its  softer  mate¬ 
rials.  In  many  places  during  the  Glacial  Period  the 
surface  has  been  cut  down  for  a  depth  of  five  to  ten 
thousand  feet,  and  all  of  the  debris  coming  from  this 
erosion  has  been  deposited  lower  down,  at  points  where, 
through  the  meeting  of  counter  currents,  or  from  some 
other  cause,  the  motion  becomes  reduced.  Such  glacial 
deposits  consist  of  material  known  as  glacial  gravel, 
which  may  easily  be  recognized  by  certain  definite  char¬ 
acteristics,  and  may  thus  be  always  sharply  distinguished 
from  deposits  formed  by  the  action  of  water  or  other 
natural  forces. 

In  the  first  place,  a  glacial  deposit  contains  stones  of 
many  different  sizes  in  contact  with  one  another,  that  is, 
the  material  is  unassorted,  while  in  a  deposit  formed  by 
water,  the  ingredients  are  arranged  in  accordance  with 
size ;  in  the  second  place,  the  shape  of  the  separate  stones 
differs  in  the  two  cases.  Pebbles  hurled  together  by  the 
agency  of  a  strong  current  of  water,  either  waves  or  cas- 


THE  CHRONOLOGY  OF  PAST  HISTORY 


15 


cades,  will  on  the  average  be  struck  equally  on  all  sides. 
They  will  consequently  wear  smooth,  and  assume  a 
rounded,  oblong,  or  oval  form,  without  corners  or  sharp 
angles.  A  glacial  pebble,  on  the  other  hand,  seized  and 
held  fast  in  the  grip  of  the  ice,  will  have  at  least  one 
side  planed  down  and  often  polished,  while  the  rest  re¬ 
mains  crude  and  rough.  It  will,  however,  be  occasionally 
turned  over,  through  striking  against  some  unusual  ob¬ 
stacle,  and  then  another  side  will  become  planed.  Owing 
to  the  friction  at  the  lower  surface  of  a  glacier  a  frag¬ 
ment  of  rock,  newly  torn  from  its  original  quarry,  will 
tend  to  place  itself  so  that  its  largest  axis  lies  directly 
across  the  stream,  at  right  angles  with  the  direction  of 
motion,  and  it  thus  happens  that,  while  retaining  this 
position,  its  motion  will  consist  of  an  irregular  rotation 
along  this  axis,  which  will  cause  it  to  assume  the  form 
of  a  prism,  usually  with  three  easily  recognized  sides. 
The  ends,  which  in  all  this  rolling  remain  imbedded  in 
the  ice,  will  receive  only  a  chance  impact,  and  thus  glacial 
pebbles  are  frequently  met  with,  irregularly  prismatic 
in  shape  and  well  smoothed,  but  with  one  or  both  ends 
still  showing  the  roughness  of  the  original  fracture.  Such 
a  fragment  of  rock,  worked  down  by  glacial  action, 
whether  small  or  large,  is  termed  a  glacial  boulder ,  and 
in  all  glacial  deposits  they  are  constantly  met  with,  and 
form  the  main  characteristic  of  the  deposit. 

Glacial  gravels  may  in  places  be  spread  quite  evenly 
over  the  country,  but  are  more  apt  to  be  piled  up,  either 
in  long  rows  which  resemble  dikes  or  ramparts,  or  in  the 
form  of  oval  hills,  called  “ hog-backs,”  especially  char¬ 
acteristic  glacial  features.  In  these  latter  the  form  is 
quite  geometrically  oval,  the  longer  axis  at  right  angles 


16 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


with  the  direction  of  the  ice  current  that  deposited  it. 
Glacial  gravels  may  also  be  deposited  in  definite  layers, 
the  layers  being  often  characterized  by  a  difference  in 
the  average  sizes  of  the  constituents  and  representing 
some  change  in  the  depth,  force,  or  direction  of  the  ice 
currents.  As  such  a  change  can  be  occasioned  only  by  a 
considerable  difference  of  level  and  slope  in  the  sur¬ 
rounding  land  surface,  the  time  period  between  two  suc¬ 
cessive  layers  now  in  contact  may  be  often  very  great, 
and  the  lower  and  upper  layers  of  such  a  deposit  may 
thus  be  separated  in  time  by  many  thousands  of  years. 

6.  Chronology  of  the  Ice  Age. — As  would  naturally 
be  expected,  these  glacial  gravels,  the  direct  result  of 
the  grinding  of  the  ice  masses,  do  not  usually  contain 
organic  remains,  but  they  are  still  of  much  value  to  the 
prehistorian,  since  upon  them  is  based  the  entire  chro¬ 
nology  of  the  Ice  Period,  and  the  position  of  remains 
relative  to  these  deposits  is  often  the  vital  point  in  the 
dating  of  prehistoric  events.  Thus,  from  the  deposits  as 
studied  in  and  about  the  Tyrol,  taking  into  account  also 
the  extent  of  the  erosion,  in  fact,  all  the  results  of  glacial 
action,  the  physical  geographer  Penck  has  established  for 
the  region  studied,  and  presumably  for  all  Europe,  four 
successive  advances,  with  three  intermediate  retreats,  of 
the  great  ice  sheet.1  These,  named  from  local  rivers  in 
whose  valleys  the  characteristic  deposits  occur,  are  the 
following : 


1  Penck,  “Die  Alpinen  Eiszeitbildungen  und  der  prahisto- 
rischer  Mensch.”  Archiv  fur  Anthropol,  1904,  pp.  78-90,  cf. 
also,  Penck  and  Briickner,  “Die  Alpen  im  Eiszeitalter,”  Leipzig, 
1901.  Obermeier  lias  also  compared  glacial  chronology,  for 
which  cf.  “Les  formations  glaciares  des  Alpes  et  l'homme 
paleolithique.”  L'Antliropologie.  T.  XX,  1909,  pp.  497-522. 


Daun 


Gschnitz 


U.  Buhl 


Third  Interglacial 
Riss-Wurm 


First  Interglacial 
Gunz-Mindel 


Fig.  2. — Diagram  of  the  glacial  advances  and 
retreats,  with  the  minor  glaciations  of  early 
post-glacial  times. 


IS 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  TAST 


Giinz  Ice  (1st  Glacial  Period) 

Giinz-Mindel  Interglacial  Period 
Mindel  Ice  (2nd  Glacial  Period) 

Mindel-Riss  Interglacial  Period 
Riss  Ice  (3rd  Glacial  Period) 

Riss-Wurm  Interglacial  Period 
Wurm  Ice  (4th  Glacial  Period) 

As  is  usual  in  the  case  of  geological  subdivisions,  the 
earlier  periods  were  the  longest  in  duration,  the  length 
of  time  for  each  period  growing  gradually  shorter.  The 
entire  interval  from  the  retreat  of  the  Wurm  Ice  to  the 
present  has  been  less  than  that  of  the  Riss-Wurm  Inter¬ 
glacial  Period  alone,  and  thus,  although  it  is  assumed, 
from  the  more  complete  retreat  of  the  ice,  that  the  pe¬ 
riods  of  glaciation  are  over,  the  present  may  be,  after  all, 
only  a  fourth  interglacial  period,  eventually  to  be  fol¬ 
lowed,  as  has  repeatedly  happened  in  the  past,  by  an¬ 
other  advance  of  the  cold. 

This  chronology  of  Penck,  although  worked  out  pri¬ 
marily  from  the  geological  standpoint,  and  without 
special  reference  to  man,  was  harmonized  by  this  author 
with  the  early  human  chronology,  as  established  by  de 
Mortillet  upon  the  remains  of  glacial  man  and  his  handi¬ 
work.  It  may  thus  be  conveniently  taken  as  a  background 
for  the  study  of  early  man,  as  the  series  of  events  upon 
which  to  base  early  human  prehistory. 

Were  all  the  deposits  of  the  Glacial  Period  those 
formed  by  the  ice,  the  direct  result  of  the  grinding  of 
the  glaciers,  few  if  any  actual  remains  of  either  man  or 


THE  CHRONOLOGY  OF  PAST  HISTORY 


19 


his  contemporary  animals  would  have  come  down  to  us ; 
but,  fortunately  for  the  prehistorian,  the  period  was  not 
entirely  one  of  glaciation,  and  both  in  the  ice-free  re¬ 
gions,  and  everywhere  during  the  long  interglacial  pe¬ 
riods,  there  were  laid  down  many  deposits  that  have 
yielded  much.  Such  are  the  river  terraces ,  and  the  gla¬ 
cial  sand  dunes,  and  other  eolian  (or  wind)  deposits, 
known  in  general  as  loess. 

7.  Post-Glacial  Times. — There  came  a  time,  after  the 
last  main  advance  of  the  ice,  when  the  retreat  continued 
far  beyond  the  bounds  of  any  previous  interglacial  pe¬ 
riod,  and  the  present  day  still  shows  a  continuation  of 
this  movement.  The  ice  has  now  long  left  the  entire  con¬ 
tinent  of  Europe,  save  where  its  last  traces  still  remain 
on  the  higher  elevations  of  the  Alps  and  in  a  few  other 
places,  but  Greenland  and  all  the  circumpolar  countries 
remain  covered  by  it.  The  date  of  this  last  retreat  is 
variously  estimated ;  some  say  that  the  greater  part  of 
Europe  was  ice  free  as  far  back  as  from  twenty-five  to 
thirty  thousand  years  ago ;  while  others  make  a  longer 
estimate.  At  all  events,  it  was  very  recent,  geologically 
speaking,  and  it  is  quite  possible  to  begin  a  chronology 
in  years,  using  round  numbers,  and  giving  considerable 
latitude  in  limits. 

Although,  after  the  final  retreat  of  the  Wurm  Ice, 
there  was  no  further  advance  of  the  cold  of  nearly  as 
great  severity  or  duration  as  in  the  case  of  the  previous 
ones,  there  were  yet  several  lesser  local  glaciations  af¬ 
fecting  the  entire  Alpine  system  of  central  Europe,  and 
including  the  Alps  proper,  the  Pyrenees,  and  the  Appe- 
nines.  As  with  the  four  great  Ice  Periods  of  the  Qua¬ 
ternary,  these  were  successively  milder  and  milder ;  the 


20 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


ice  line  stopped  at  a  higher  level,  and  the  period  was 
successive  shorter.  These  lesser  ice  intervals,  occurring 
during  the  early  part  of  the  Post-Glacial  Period,  were 
named  from  rivers  in  the  Tyrol,  as  in  the  case  of  the 
greater  glaciation,  and  were  likewise  included  in  the 
fundamental  researches  of  Penck.  The  Buhl  ice  ap¬ 
peared  after  an  ice-free  interval  that  ushered  in  the 
Post-Glacial  Period  and  extended  over  a  period  of  time 
from  about  24,000  to  16,000  B.C.  This  was  followed, 
after  a  warmer  interval,  by  the  second  post-glacial  gla¬ 
ciation,  that  of  the  Gschnitz,  between  perhaps  B.C.  13,000 
and  9,000.  The  final  glaciation,  that  of  the  Daun  ice, 
was  confined  to  the  higher  lands  of  the  Alps  them¬ 
selves,  and  made  its  appearance  about  seven  thousand 
years  before  the  Christian  era.  The  present-day  Alpine 
glaciers,  although  greatly  reduced,  may  be  considered 
the  final  remnants  of  this  last  glaciation. 

While  these  later  returns  of  the  ice  ages  affected  the 
development  and  environment  of  man  locally,  the  coun¬ 
try  outside  of  the  Alpine  areas,  and  during  the  inter¬ 
glacial  intervals  even  there,  showed  the  general  charac¬ 
teristics  of  the  post-glacial  times.  The  most  striking 
physical  characteristics  of  the  country  left  free  by  the 
retreating  ice  sheet  was  the  abundance  of  water  courses, 
which  frequently  expanded  into  chains  of  sizable  lakes, 
much  as  in  the  case  of  Finland  now.  The  land  near  the 
edge  of  the  ice  became  clothed  by  a  flora  such  as  is  now 
characteristic  of  subarctic  regions,  like  Labrador,  or 
like  that  of  high  mountain  regions,  but  at  a  lower  zone, 
creeping  northward  as  the  glacier  retreated,  appeared 
a  more  temperate  flora.  These  plants  were  mostly  or 
wholly  modern  species,  still  characteristic  of  regions  with 


THE  CHRONOLOGY  OF  PAST  HISTORY 


21 


similar  climate,  and  the  leaves  and  branches  enclosed  in 
the  mud  at  the  bottom  of  those  early  lakes,  in  what  is 
now  the  temperate  part  of  Europe  and  America,  belong 
to  species  occurring  at  the  present  day  in  Alaska  and 
Labrador,  or  upon  the  high  Alps.  These  chains  of  lakes, 
or  locally  expanded  rivers,  as  they  may  be  considered, 
were  practically  in  the  same  locations  as  the  rivers  of 
the  present  time,  for  the  glacial  epoch,  with  its  grinding 
down  and  its  depositions,  had  sculptured  the  surface  of 
the  land  into  approximately  its  present  shape,  and  the 
rivers  which  ran  from  the  melting  ice  chose  the  lowest 
levels  for  their  courses,  and  in  so  doing  defined  the 
present  river  valleys.  During  the  post-glacial  time, 
however,  this  extensive  water  system  has  exerted  its  cus¬ 
tomary  force  in  eroding  and  cutting  down  in  one  place 
and  depositing  in  another,  and  has  thus  put  the  finishing 
touches  on  the  modern  landscape  of  the  area  involved  in 
the  form  of  lake  and  river  terraces,  deep  ravines  and 
canons,  and  those  broad  alluvial  plains  which  play  so 
large  a  part  in  the  agricultural  interests  of  the  present- 
day  world. 

While  now  the  post-glacial  waters  were  at  work  pre¬ 
paring  the  surface  for  later  man,  laying  out  wide  areas 
of  arable  ground,  and  cutting  down  the  ravines  for  the 
future  reception  of  railroads  and  telegraph  lines,  man 
himself  was  developing  in  such  a  way  as  to  be  ready  to 
use  these  advantages.  The  ape-men  had  gone,  and  with 
them  the  mammoth,  the  cave  bear  and  the  cave  hyena ; 
the  dog,  the  sheep  and  goat,  and  perhaps  some  other  ani¬ 
mals,  had  been  domesticated ;  and  the  man  of  the  present 
type,  forsaking  the  crude  rock  shelters,  had  learned  to 
construct  various  kinds  of  houses  in  the  open.  Taking 


oo 


MAX'S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


advantage  of  the  lakes,  he  became  in  many  places  a  lake 
dweller,  building  extensive  villages  on  piles  driven  into 
the  mud  and  communicating  with  the  shore  by  draw¬ 
bridges,  which  could  be  drawn  up  at  night  or  in  time  of 
danger.  His  weapons  were  now  made  with  much  care 
and  artistic  in  finish ;  he  had  learned  to  weave,  first  bas¬ 
kets,  and  then  cloth,  and  to  construct  pottery.  From 
now  on  his  development  is  a  study  of  human  culture,  and 
approaches  the  border  of  history,  for  while  the  central 
European  was  still  at  about  this  stage  of  his  develop¬ 
ment,  the  Egyptians  were  building  walled  cities,  and 
recording  the  great  deeds  of  their  rulers  by  means  of 
symbols  carved  upon  stone  surfaces,  the  beginnings  of 
written  history. 

But  neither  here,  nor  in  Mesopotamia,  nor  in  any  other 
land  which  possesses  traces  of  early  writing,  do  we  know 
what  preceded  this  stage.  We  find  in  certain  places  sym¬ 
bols  that  stand  for  vocal  syllables,  fossil  human  speech, 
and  when  we  listen  to  these  ancient  accents,  heard  but 
dimly  through  the  ages,  they  speak,  not  of  primitive 
peoples,  but  of  dwellers  in  cities,  with  organized  armies, 
and  with  a  high  degree  of  culture ;  yet  in  the  soil,  at  times 
literally  beneath  the  ruins  of  these  civilizations,  occur  the 
cruder  flints  of  Stone  Age  people,  suggesting  an  earlier 
history,  similar  to  crude  beginnings  elsewhere.  There  is 
the  greatest  need  of  exploration  in  all  parts  of  the  world, 
so  that  human  prehistory  may  become  more  than  a  frag¬ 
mentary  one,  and  the  fact  that  so  much  has  been  done 
within  comparatively  a  few  years  gives  us  the  greatest 
enthusiasm  for  the  results  of  the  future. 

8.  The  Work  of  the  Post-Glacial  Rivers  and  Lakes. — 
Rivers  and  lakes,  viewed  as  geological  forces,  are  largely 


THE  CHRONOLOGY  OF  PAST  HISTORY 


23 


responsible  for  whatever  shaping  of  the  surface  of  the 
earth  has  taken  place  since  the  Glacial  Period,  and  thus 
a  knowledge  of  them  as  dynamic  powers,  together  with 
the  kind  of  work  they  perform,  is  one  of  the  first  essen¬ 
tials  for  the  prehistorian.  For  the  study  of  this  branch 
of  knowledge  the  reader  is  referred  to  a  good  textbook 
of  geology,  while  for  the  sake  of  unity  an  outline  of  the 
essential  principles,  in  their  relation  to  practical  arch¬ 
eology,  is  here  presented. 

The  work  of  rivers  consists  in  part  of  tearing  down, 
and  in  part  of  building  up — that  is,  of  erosion  and  de¬ 
position.  Furthermore,  a  river  is  uneven  in  its  activi¬ 
ties,  which  are  subject  to  a  definite  seasonal  rhythm. 
After  the  melting  of  the  snows,  and  the  consequent  swell¬ 
ing  of  the  volume  of  water,  a  river  may  temporarily  be¬ 
come  a  torrent,  doing  work  within  a  few  days  or  hours 
which  it  is  powerless  to  accomplish  again  until  the  next 
year;  again,  a  river  is  a  temporary  structure,  usually 
largest  and  most  powerful  at  its  beginning,  shrinking  to 
the  size  of  a  mere  brook  toward  its  close,  and  finally 
drying  up  altogether. 

Rivers  are  naturally  found  coursing  through  the  bot¬ 
tom  of  ravines,  but  it  is  also  true  that  the  ravines  them¬ 
selves  are  mainly  the  result  of  the  erosion  of  the  rivers 
that  lie  within  them.  When  the  ravine  is  very  deep 
and  the  stream  is  very  small,  it  is  necessary  to  postulate 
a  considerable  extent  of  time  in  order  to  account  for  the 
large  amount  of  excavation  in  proportion  to  the  size  of 
the  agent,  but  it  is  also  probable  that  when  the  ravine 
was  commenced  the  stream  was  much  more  voluminous 
and  the  work  was  being  more  rapidly  accomplished.  The 
periodic  change  of  power  of  such  agencies  must  also  be 


24 


MAN'S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


taken  into  consideration,  and  it  must  constantly  be  re¬ 
membered  that  even  a  small  brook,  when  viewed  in  the 
summer,  may  still  possess  a  considerable  erosive  power 
at  the  time  of  the  spring  freshets.  Again,  the  tendency 
to  cut  a  river  bed  deeper,  well  seen  in  the  case  of  a 
ravine  or  gorge,  is  often  counterbalanced  under  different 
conditions,  by  a  lateral  erosion  of  the  banks.  Thus,  in 
the  case  of  a  river  traversing  a  nearly  level  plain,  or 
extensive  meadow,  the  lateral  erosion  is  far  greater  than 
that  at  the  bottom,  so  that  often  the  annual  encroachment 
of  the  river,  now  upon  one  bank,  now  upon  the  other, 
becomes  a  serious  matter  to  the  inhabitants,  while  there 
may  be  no  perceptible  increase  in  the  depth  of  the  bed. 
When,  however,  a  river,  in  traversing  a  level  meadow, 
finally  develops  sufficient  depth  of  bed  to  form  a  ravine, 
the  former  meadow  may  have  become  almost  entirely 
eroded  and  carried  off  down  stream  while  a  narrow 
fringe,  at  the  original  level,  and  bordering  the  ravine 
upon  one  or  both  sides,  is  left  as  a  rive?'  terrace.  Such 
terraces,  always,  of  course,  far  older  than  the  river,  are 
old  in  proportion  to  their  height  above  the  present  river, 
and  in  cases  in  which  there  are  two  or  more  successive 
terraces,  as  may  happen  through  the  interposition  of  a 
second  period  of  meadow-building  with  a  subsequent 
erosion  after  the  formation  of  a  high  terrace,  the  ter¬ 
races  are  chronologically  successive,  that  of  the  greater 
altitude  being  not  only  the  older,  but  separated  in  date 
from  the  other  by  a  very  long  interval.  Thus  a  terrace, 
although  a  formation  always  associated  with  river  action, 
is  not  a  deposit  of  the  present  river,  but  the  remains  of  an 
ancient  meadow  or  plain,  left  through  the  erosion  of  the 
rest  by  river  action,  and  itself  the  result  of  deposition, 


THE  CHRONOLOGY  OF  PAST  HISTORY 


25 


probably  by  a  previously  existing  lake,  or  the  expanded 
portion  of  a  previous  river,  which  amounts  to  the  same 
thing. 

As  for  the  second  action  of  a  river,  deposition,  it  is, 
like  all  aqueous  deposits,  at  each  point  dependent  upon 
so  many  factors,  the  strength  of  the  current,  the  velocity, 
the  depth,  the  character  of  the  material,  and  so  on,  that 
each  small  area  may  present  a  problem  in  itself.  Natu¬ 
rally  the  most  extensive  deposition  occurs  over  the  bot¬ 
tom  of  still,  expanded  portions,  which  are  practically 
themselves  ponds  or  lakes.  In  other  places  a  pebbly  or  a 
sandy  beach  may  result  from  local  currents,  or  other 
conditions,  more  or  less  limited  in  extent,  or  perhaps  a 
delta  of  fine  mud  may  be  built  out  under  water  opposite 
the  mouth  of  a  turbulent  tributary.  All  such  deposits 
accurately  picture  the  conditions  that  produced  them, 
and  when  studied  in  the  undisturbed  soil,  yield  numer¬ 
ous  details  of  the  local  environment  at  the  time  of  depo¬ 
sition,  and  may  be  dated  relatively  to  associated 
deposits. 

All  lakes  and  ponds,  however  large,  are  like  rivers, 
strictly  temporary  structures,  being  gradually  filled  up 
by  the  accumulation  of  the  particles  of  earth  brought 
down  in  the  waters  of  their  tributaries  and  diminishing 
directly  through  the  gradual  shrinking  of  the  tributaries 
themselves.  Along  the  shallower  borders  also,  a  rim  of 
vegetation  is  always  ready  to  encroach  upon  the  water, 
and  by  adding  its  substance  to  the  rest  assists  locally  to 
a  not  inconsiderable  degree  in  the  conquest  of  land  over 
water. 

The  sediment  brought  down  by  the  tributary  streams 
becomes  distributed,  often  quite  evenly,  over  an  ex- 


2S 


MAN'S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


tensive  area  of  water,  and  eventually  becomes  deposited 
on  the  bottom.  In  the  case  of  fairly  quiet  water,  as  is 
general  during  the  summer  months,  this  sediment  is 
of  the  finest  possible  grade,  but  in  the  time  of  the  spring 
freshets,  larger  particles  are  borne  down  in  the  turbu¬ 
lent  waters,  and  thus  in  places  annual  layers  are  formed 
of  coarse  spring  materials  alternating  with  the  finer  par¬ 
ticles  characteristic  of  the  rest  of  the  year.  Many  river 
and  lake  deposits  thus  consist  of  definite  annual  layers, 
which  in  some  places  are  so  distinct  as  to  be  easily 
counted,  and  furnish  an  absolute  means  of  determining 
the  length  of  time  consumed  in  laying  down  the  entire 
deposit.  Thus  a  river  terrace,  formed  by  a  river  which 
has  eroded  and  carried  off  the  remainder  of  a  former 
lake  bottom,  may  indicate  exactly  the  length  of  time  con¬ 
sumed  in  its  formation,  although  the  other  features  of 
the  problem,  such  as  the  subsequent  erosion  itself,  and 
the  formation  of  the  river  valley  at  a  lower  level,  are 
independent  problems,  with  no  possibility  of  such 
definite  solutions. 

9.  River  Terraces. — The  river  terraces  with  which  the 
prehistorian  is  especially  concerned  are  those  of  the  Qua¬ 
ternary  Period,  formed,  for  the  most  part,  by  the  inter¬ 
glacial  lakes  and  rivers,  and  subsequently  left  as  the 
result  of  erosion  by  later  ice  or  by  water  torrents.  Such 
deposits  are  shown  in  the  accompanying  diagrams,  Figs. 
3  and  4,  which  are  based  upon  the  conditions  found  in 
the  valley  of  the  river  Somme,  near  Abbeville,  Picardy, 
in  France,  a  classical  locality  for  the  study  of  the  glacial 
man.  The  original  valley,  the  boundaries  of  which  upon 
either  side  just  come  within  the  limits  of  Fig.  3,  was 
excavated,  by  ice  or  water,  or  both,  in  the  bed  rock  of 


THE  CHRONOLOGY  OF  PAST  HISTORY 


29 


the  region,  a  calcareous  deposit  of  the  late  Mesozoic.  Dur¬ 
ing  the  period  at  which  this. basin  was  occupied  by  a  lake, 
or  a  broad,  sluggish  estuary,  it  became  filled  up  by  gravel 
to  the  top  level  of  the  upper  terrace,  e,  which  then  ex¬ 
tended  across  the  entire  valley,  from  side  to  side.  Later 
on,  when,  perhaps,  the  lake  was  replaced  by  a  glacier, 
this  deposit  was  cut  out,  with  the  exception  of  the  pres¬ 
ent  terrace  e,  a  little  remnant  which,  for  some  reason, 
was  not  torn  out  with  the  rest.  Changing,  now,  this 
glacier  for  a  second  lake,  a  second  period  of  deposition 
followed,  this  time  filling  the  valley  to  the  top  level  of 
the  terrace  d  d.  Again  came  a  period  during  which  the 
valley  was  cut  out  again,  leaving  at  this  time  terraces 
along  both  sides  of  the  confining  walls,  those  at  d  d  in 
the  diagram.  The  lake  that  followed  this  second  denuda¬ 
tion  laid  down  the  deposit  c,  and  upon  this  a  thin  layer 
of  fine  clay  (7i  in  Fig  4)  and  then  flowed  away,  leaving  a 
marshy  bottom,  upon  which,  through  the  long  continued 
growth-  of  sphagnum  moss,  a  thick  layer  of  peat,  h,  grad¬ 
ually  accumulated.  Finally,  the  drainage  of  the  valley 
became  concentrated  into  the  present  river  Somme, 
which  now  drains  the  peat,  and  has  already  deposited 
along  its  bottom  a  thin  layer  washed  from  the  bed  of  its 
tributary  streams  higher  up.  If,  now,  we  read  these 
changes  backward,  the  relative  ages  of  the  peat,  the  de¬ 
posit  c,  the  lower,  and  the  higher  terraces,  may  be  com¬ 
puted.  The  peat,  practically  the  latest  deposit,  is  here 
twenty  to  thirty  feet  in  thickness,  and,  as  the  accumula¬ 
tion  is  very  slow,  depending  mainly  upon  the  slight 
annual  growth  of  the  moss,  which  has  been  calculated  to 
be  a  little  more  than  one  inch  in  a  century,  represents 
many  thousands  of  years.  Before  this  came,  successively, 


30 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


going  continually  backward,  the  gravel  deposit  c,  the 
cutting  out  of  the  earlier  deposit  now  represented  by  the 
higher-level  terraces  e,  and,  earliest  of  all,  the  slow 
formation  of  the  vast  deposit  of  which  the  terrace  e  is 
the  remnant.  It  is  thus  plain  that  a  very  long  period 
has  elapsed  since  the  formation  of  the  terraces  d  d,  and 
that  the  terrace  e  is  much  older  still,  and  yet  both  levels 
d  and  e  yield  not  only  the  bones  and  teeth  of  elephants, 
rhinoceroses,  and  other  animals  of  the  glacial  period, 
but  also  numerous  elaborated  flints,  implements  of  the 
crudest  description,  though  unquestionably  shaped  by 
man.  These  are,  moreover,  always  found  in  the  un¬ 
disturbed  strata,  and  placed  in  such  relation  to  the 
animal  remains  spoken  of  so  as  to  leave  no  doubt  of 
their  contemporaneity.  Everything  in  these  deposits, 
including  both  elephant  bones  and  worked  flints,  must 
have  been  brought  there  by  the  force  of  the  same  water 
currents  that  laid  down  the  deposits,  after  the  soil  form¬ 
ing  the  terraces  was  originally  made,  and  the  possibility 
of  a  subsequent  intrusion  of  those  objects  is  absolutely 
excluded. 

In  Pig.  4  is  given  a  detail  of  one  of  the  lower-level  ter¬ 
races  of  Fig.  3,  in  which  its  composition  is  seen.  This 
consists  in  this  especial  case  of  three  distinct  layers,  of 
which  the  two  lower  ones  were  part  of  the  original  de¬ 
posit,  while  the  most  superficial  one  is  much  later.  The 
lowest  one  of  all,  and  the  one  that  contains  the  remains, 
is  itself  stratified,  and  must  have  been  formed  under 
water ;  the  second  may  have  been  in  part  a  sand  dune, 
deposited  by  the  high  winds  of  the  ice* age  after  the  lake 
imd  been  transformed  into  a  glacier. 

10.  Eolian  Deposits;  Loess. — While  the  glacial  gravels, 


THE  CHRONOLOGY  OF  PAST  HI  STORY 


31 


mostly  distributed  irregularly  in  the  form  of  moraines, 
drumlins,  and  other  characteristic  formations,  are  due 
to  the  direct  action  of  the  glacial  ice,  the  violent  wind 
storms  of  the  glacial  times  have  occasioned  much  modifi¬ 
cation  of  glacial  deposits  in  places,  and  covered  the  sur¬ 
face  with  local  deposits  of  drifting  sands.  These  eolian , 
or  wind-produced  deposits  bear  the  general  name  of  loess, 
and  are  occasionally  rich  in  objects,  of  date  contempo¬ 
rary  with  the  formation  itself,  and  buried  beneath  the 
drifting  sands. 

Loess  is  never  definitely  stratified  in  regular  layers,  as 
is  the  case  with  the  clays  that  accumulate  at  the  bottom 
of  ponds  and  other  quiet  water ;  neither  is  it  without 
system,  like  glacial  moraines,  but  it  has  a  definite  and 
characteristic  structure,  which  is  best  seen  in  sections 
through  a  sand  drift  or  sand  dune,  originally  a  hill  of 
wind-blown  sand,  heaped  up  as  the  result  of  successive 
storms.  Such  a  drift,  like  a  snow-drift,  will  be  first 
brought  together  as  the  result  of  a  definite  wind-storm, 
where  the  configuration  of  surrounding  objects  causes  a 
drift  to  form  in  a  certain  spot.  The  action  of  subsequent 
winds,  changeable  in  violence  and  direction,  will  reform 
and  sculpture  the  surface,  removing  material  here  and 
adding  it  there,  the  new  material  attempting  ever  to 
conform  to  the  shape  of  the  surface  it  finds.  Each  de¬ 
position  tends  to  be  stratified,  its  line  parallel  to  the 
underlying  surface,  the  whole  presenting  in  section  the 
successive  results  of  such  treatment :  areas  of  semi- 
stratified  sands  resting  unconformably  upon  those  be¬ 
neath  them. 

Areas  of  drifting  sands,  whether  piled  up  into  definite 
dunes  or  not,  often  yield  objects  of  great  value,  since  the 


32 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


winds  occasionally  uncover  and  lay  bare  objects  that 
have  been  confided  to  their  keeping,  they  also,  and  more 
frequently,  serve  to  bury  objects  dropped  upon  their 
surface.  One  disadvantage,  however,  comes  from  the 
scattered  nature  of  these  objects,  both  in  distance  apart, 
and  in  level,  and  another  results  from  the  lack  of  neces¬ 
sary  contemporaneity  of  objects  found  closely  associated. 
All  we  can  definitely  know  concerning  the  dates  of 
the  objects  collected  in  the  loess,  is  that  they  were 
either  contemporary  with  the  storm  that  buried  them, 
or  that  they  were  older,  but  were  gathered  together 
by  a  single  storm,  perhaps,  even,  by  a  single  gust 
of  wind.  At  the  same  time,  with  all  its  disadvantages 
and  uncertainties,  loess  is  a  valuble  storehouse  of  pre¬ 
historic  materials  of  approximately  glacial  age,  and  many 
important  objects  have  been  rescued  from  it. 


CHAPTER  II 


MATERIAL  AND  METHODS 

Methods  of  Ascertaining  the  Age  of  Remains — Rock  Shelters 
( abris  sous  roches ) — Caverns,  and  the  Remains  Found  in 
Them;  Cave  Paintings  —  Kitchen-Middens  —  Remains  of 
Houses  and  Hearths — Tree  Houses  and  Lake  Dwellings — 
Crannogs — Forts  and  Scharrachs — Cornfields,  Dew  Ponds, 
and  Cattle-ways  —  Megalithic  Monuments  —  Graves  and 
Burial  Places — Mounds  and  Tumuli — Cists.  Tombs,  and 
Sepulchral  Chambers — Special  and  Peculiar  Methods  of  the 
Disposal  of  the  Dead — Town  and  City  Sites — Culture  Sites 
Buried  beneath  Volcanic  Deposits — Search  for  Objects 
Lying  under  Water — Chance  Findings. 

11.  Methods  of  Ascertaining  the  Age  of  Remains. — 
From  the  brief  sketch  of  recent  geological  formations 
outlined  in  the  previous  chapter  it  becomes  plain  (1) 
that  different  portions  of  the  soil  have  been  deposited  by 
different  agencies  and  at  very  different  times,  (2)  that 
the  age  of  these  deposits  relative  to  one  another  can  be 
estimated,  and  (3)  that  in  many  cases  the  approximate 
age  of  a  deposit  or  of  a  given  layer  in  a  deposit  may  be 
calculated  by  ascertaining  the  amount  of  work  done  (ero¬ 
sion,  deposition,  etc.)  taking  into  account  the  probable 
strength  of  the  agencies  that  accomplish  it.  Further¬ 
more,  it  follows  that  in  an  undisturbed  deposit  or  layer, 
with  other  deposits  lying  equally  undisturbed  above  it, 
as  may  be  seen  in  a  vertical  section  through  the  entire 
structure,  all  the  objects  included  must  have  been  put 
there  at  the  time  of  the  deposit,  whether  they  be  merely 

33 


MAN'S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


34 

sand  and  stones,  or  bones  and  teeth.  It  is,  however, 
not  always  easy  to  prove  that  a  given  object  was  an 
original  part  of  an  undisturbed  deposit,  and  certain  fre¬ 
quent  causes  for  error  must  be  guarded  against.  An  ob¬ 
ject,  originally  foreign  to  the  formation  in  which  it  is 
found,  is  called  intrusive ,  and  its  presence  may  be  due 
to  one  of  several  agencies,  the  most  usual  of  which  are  the 
following : 

(1)  Designedly  buried  by  man.  An  illustration  of 
this  is  the  case  of  a  burial  where  the  grave  is  dug  within 
or  through  another  deposit,  naturally  without  reference 
to  the  structure  of  the  latter.  The  soil  usually  selected 
for  interment  is  that  of  some  geologically  recent  de¬ 
posit,  either  glacial,  lacustrine,  or  fluviatile,  and  is  very 
often  arranged  in  layers.  Here  the  intrusion  is  readily 
detected,  since,  in  digging  the  grave  the  layers  are  dis¬ 
turbed,  and  in  sections  are  evidently  disarranged,  and 
quite  unlike  the  soil  beyond  the  excavation.  A  more  dif¬ 
ficult  case  of  intrusive  burial  is  one  where  an  artificial 
formation,  made  by  man  in  the  first  place,  is  used  by  a 
later  culture  as  a  burial  site.  This  is  frequently  met 
with  in  the  Indian  mounds  of  the  United  States,  which 
offer  places  of  great  convenience  for  burial  because  of 
the  softness  of  the  earth,  the  freedom  from  stones,  and 
so  on.  Such  places  are  constantly  selected  for  interment 
by  peoples  that  have  no  traditions  concerning  the  spots 
thus  used,  and  are  probably  not  related  to  the  original 
builders. 

(2)  Worked  into  the  soil  from  above  through  the  ac¬ 
tion  of  moles ,  earthworms ,  or  other  animal  agents.  As  an 
illustration  of  a  displacement  due  to  this  cause  may  be 
cited  the  case  of  the  skeleton  of  a  Massachusetts  Indian, 


MATERIAL  AND  METHODS 


35 


in  which  the  bones  of  the  right  middle  finger  were  found 
within  the  cranial  cavity.  As  is  usual  in  the  locality 
from  which  this  skeleton  was  taken,  the  body  had  been 
buried  doubled  up,  with  the  hands  applied  to  each  other 
and  placed  beside  the  head.  Through  the  action  of  some 
creatures,  presumably  earthworms,  many  of  the  smaller 
bones,  especially  those  of  the  fingers  and  toes,  usually  be¬ 
come  displaced  or  lost,  and  the  instance  cited  was  merely 
a  rather  extreme  case  of  such  a  displacement.  Modern 
iron  nails  are  frequently  found  at  a  few  inches  of  depth 
where  excavation  is  carried  on  at  a  modern  culture  site. 
These  are  usually  at  such  slight  depth  that  their  pres¬ 
ence  may  be  satisfactorily  accounted  for  by  the  action 
of  rains,  frosts,  or  simply  the  tread  of  human  feet;  in 
other  cases  they  may  have  been  carried  in  with  a  fence 
post  or  other  piece  of  timber  in  which  they  were  im¬ 
bedded.  The  complete  decay  of  the  post  would  leave 
the  nails  free  in  the  soil,  which,  in  ordinary  digging, 
would  seem  to  have  been  undisturbed. 

(3)  Inadvertently  loosened  from  a  higher  level  dur¬ 
ing  excavation ,  and  found  later  at  or  near  the  bottom  of 
the  trench  in  close  association  with  material  belonging 
lower  down.  Such  a  displacement  is  extremely  liable  to 
happen  when  excavating  a  deposit  that  lies  in  definite 
horizontal  layers  by  the  usual  methods  of  making  a  ver¬ 
tical  cutting  through  them.  It  is,  in  fact,  so  easy  to 
occur  and  so  difficult  to  rectify  that  an  archeologist  in 
critical  cases  trusts  only  in  those  objects  which  he  finds 
in  place,  lying  in  the  mould  or  matrix  formed  about  it 
by  the  deposit.  This  matrix  is  necessarily  in  the  exact 
form  of  the  imbedded  object,  and  in  the  case  of  a  damp 
or  clayey  soil  may  preserve  the  form  for  some  time; 


36 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


besides  this,  moreover,  the  contact  surfaces  of  matrix 
and  included  object  are  often  colored  by  some  chemical, 
and  thus  match  each  other  in  color  with  absolute  pre¬ 
cision.  So  close  is  the  relationship  of  matrix  to  object 
that,  even  in  the  case  of  an  object  that  has  become  free 
and  is  picked  up  in  the  bottom  of  the  trench,  the  matrix 
from  which  it  has  fallen  may  frequently  be  identified 
and  the  proof  of  original  position  be  given  by  fitting 
the  one  into  the  other.  In  the  case  of  a  complete  match 
of  matrix  and  object,  both  in  shape  and  color,  all  chance 
of  error  is  as  completely  excluded  as  in  the  case  of  the 
two  parts  of  an  irregularly  torn  document,  such  as  were 
used  in  certain  legal  procedures  in  the  Middle  Ages. 

Wholly  aside  from  the  dating  of  remains  from  the 
deposit  in  which  they  occur,  there  are  several  other 
methods  often  conveniently  applied.  Thus  an  impor¬ 
tant  set  of  data  may  be  derived  from  associated  remains, 
especially  those  of  animals.  As  instances  of  this  may  be 
cited  the  finding  of  a  flint  implement  in  an  undisturbed 
deposit  of  gravel  in  close  association  with,  or  a  little 
below,  the  tooth  of  a  mammoth.  A  very  simple  instance 
of  this  principle,  although  of  a  much  later  time,  is  the 
discovery,  among  Mycenean  remains,  of  an  Egyptian 
coin,  bearing  the  cartouche  of  a  king,  the  date  of  whose 
reign  is  definitely  known.  This  would  fix  the  oldest 
possible  date,  though  of  course  not  necessarily  the  most 
recent,  of  the  associated  objects. 

In  cases  where  the  objects  of  which  the  age  is  to  be 
estimated  consist  of  articles  of  human  manufacture, 
technically  called  artifacts ,  extremely  valuable  data  lie 
in  the  study  of  the  objects  themselves,  including  their 
size,  shape,  degree  of  art  used  in  their  construction, 


MATERIAL  AND  METHODS 


37 


ornamentation,  and  so  on.  It  is  commonly  known  that 
an  expert  can  give  almost  an  exact  date  to  a  mediaeval 
painting  or  piece  of  furniture,  but  to  one  who  has 
studied  the  matter  a  stone  implement  or  bit  of  pre¬ 
historic  pottery  is  equally  suggestive,  although  here,  as 
one  is  dealing  with  much  greater  periods  of  time,  the 
date  naturally  cannot  be  given  in  as  exact  figures.  In 
such  an  estimation  it  is  also  necessary  to  know  the  local¬ 
ity,  or  at  least  the  country,  in  which  a  given  object  was 
found,  for  primitive  peoples  everywhere  pass  through 
almost  the  same  stages  in  their  manufacture  of  artifacts, 
and  thus  an  absolutely  prehistoric  implement  from 
Europe  might  closely  resemble  one  made  by  some  primi¬ 
tive  people  now  living  in  a  land  remote  from  civilization. 
Still,  even  in  such  an  extreme  case,  where,  for  example, 
the  crude  stone  implements  of  a  modern  Hudson  Bay 
Eskimo  and  of  an  ancient  Briton  might  become  con¬ 
fused  in  some  museum,  with  the  data  of  locality  wholly 
lost,  there  are  often  sufficient  slight  differences  in  form, 
material  and  methods  of  manufacture,  to  enable  an 
expert  to  give  them  an  approximate  position,  both  as 
to  locality  and  date.  Such  knowledge  has  to  be  derived 
in  the  first  place,  from  the  study  of  specimens  of  which 
the  locality  and  position  in  the  soil  have  been  definitely 
noted,  and  these  latter  data  are,  and  always  will  be,  the 
final  court  of  appeal,  and  the  accurate  knowledge  of  these 
greatly  increases  the  value  of  a  given  specimen. 

12.  Bock  Shelters. — In  various  parts  of  Europe,  not¬ 
ably  in  southern  France  and  in  Switzerland,  where  some 
overhanging  rock,  or  a  chance  hollow  placed  at  the  base 
of  a  cliff,  offers  a  slight  protection  from  unfavorable 
weather,  are  often  found  the  remains  of  long-continued 


38 


MAN'S  PREHISTORIC  TAST 


human  occupancy.  Where  the  men  have  lived  they  have 
gradually  built  up  deposits  consisting  of  the  bones  and 
teeth  of  the  animals  used  for  food,  mixed  with  ashes  and 
charcoal,  and  an  occasional  stone  or  bone  tool.  Indeed, 
in  these  rock  shelters,  as  they  are  technically  called  (the 
abris  sous  roches  of  the  French  archeologists),  there  may 
be  found,  within  a  small  area,  thousands  of  objects  of 


Pig.  5. — Rock  shelter  (rocher  en  surplomb),  situated  above  the  village  of  Les 
E'yzies,  Department  of  Dordogne,  southern  France.  Structures  like  this,  and 
also  actual  caverns,  occurring  in  quantity  hereabouts,  were  once  plentifully 
used  by  paleolithic  man,  and  the  region  is  an  especially  notable  one  for  the 
study  of  early  human  prehistory.  The  stations  of  La  Madelaine,  le  Moustier, 
Laugerie  basse,  Laugerie  haute,  Cro  Magnon,  and  others  occur  in  the  imme¬ 
diate  vicinity.  (After  Dechelette.) 


great  value  for  the  study  of  early  man,  and  as  these 
men  were  possessed  of  only  a  low  degree  of  culture,  and 
superposed  their  deposits  directly  upon  those  of  a  pre¬ 
vious  occupancy,  such  sites  may  present  several  different 
layers,  distinct  from  one  another,  and  representing  as 
many  different  cultures,  thousands  of  years  apart. 


MATERIAL  AND  METHODS 


39 


As  a  good  typical  illustration  of  this  sort  of  site  the 
prehistoric  station  of  Schweizersbild  may  be  taken,  a 
Swiss  station  some  four  kilometers  north  of  Schaff- 
hausen,  and  thus  near  the  Rhine,  where  it  is  yet  a  small 
stream.  The  spot  has  long  been  popularly  believed  to 


Fig.  6. — The  northeast,  or  principal,  entrance,  into  the  Kesslerloch,  near  Schaff- 
hausen,  Switzerland,  a  typical  rock-shelter.  (After  Heierli.) 


be  the  abode  of  evil  spirits,  and  when  the  first  scientific 
excavations  were  attempted,  in  1892,  there  was  much 
local  distrust  lest  the  excavators  might  find  the  great 
war  chest  of  the  French,  supposed  to  have  been  buried 
there  in  1799,  and  guarded  since  then  by  specters. 

The  first  exploration  ditch,  run  perpendicularly  to 


40 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


the  face  of  the  cliff,  outward  to  a  distance  of  13.5 
meters,  cut  down  through  five  layers  into  the  glacial 
gravel.  These  were  designated  as  follows,  from  the  sur¬ 
face  downward:  (1)  Humus,  40  cm.;  (2)  Gray  culture 
layer,  45  cm.;  (3)  Breccia,  with  the  “upper  rodent 
layer,”  80  cm.;  (4)  Yellow  culture  layer,  30  cm.;  (5) 
Lower  rodent  layer,  40  cm.  Below  this  lay  the  glacial 
gravel,  with  very  occasional  animal  remains,  but  with 
no  signs  of  human  activity. 

As  the  spot  was  long  used,  during  the  Middle  Ages,  as 
a  place  for  pilgrimage  and  later  as  an  encampment  for 
gypsies,  and  as  a  popular  resort  for  fishermen  and  picnic 
parties,  the  humus ,  or  top  soil,  was  filled  with  objects 
suggestive  of  modern  culture,  such  as  pieces  of  glass, 
nails  and  screws  of  iron,  horn  and  bone  buttons,  beads, 
and  even  rings.  A  little  clay  image  of  the  Virgin  was 
strongly  suggestive  of  some  mediaeval  pilgrim,  while 
there  were  found  a  few  objects  of  bronze,  dating  back 
to  a  pre-Roman  culture. 

The  gray  culture  layer ,  beneath  this,  was  Neolithic,  as 
shown  by  numerous  fragments  of  crude  pottery,  both 
glazed  and  unglazed,  and  by  stone  tools  with  a  smooth 
surface.  The  gray  appearance  of  the  entire  layer,  from 
which  it  received  its  name,  was  due  to  the  infiltration 
everywhere  of  ashes  and  charcoal,  and  the  whole  was 
plentifully  mixed  with  the  bones  and  bone  fragments 
of  the  various  animals  used  for  food.  These  displayed 
the  typical  fauna  of  the  European  forest,  with  a  pre¬ 
ponderance  of  deer,  the  whole  corresponding  closely  to 
remains  occurring  in  the  Swiss  Lakes,  and  also  deposited 
as  refuse  from  the  kitchen. 

The  Breccia  layer,  named  from  the  limestone  frag- 


MATERIAL  AND  METHODS 


41 


ments,  cracked  off  from  the  neighboring  cliff,  formed  a 
relatively  sterile  layer,  where  the  signs  of  human  activ¬ 
ity  were  limited  to  a  few  spots.  It  indicates  a  long 
transition  period  between  the  Neolithic  culture  of  the 


1 

2 


3 


4 


5 


6 


Fig.  7. — Section  through  the  superposed  layers  in  front  of  the  rock  shelter  of 
Schweizersbild,  near  Schaffhausen,  Switzerland.  Obtained  by  first  photograph¬ 
ing  the  east  wall  of  the  excavation,  and  then  drawing  the  boundaries  of  the 
different  layers  directly  upon  the  photograph.  The  left  side  of  the  figure  is 
close  up  to  the  foot  of  the  cliff. 

1.  Humus  layer;  culture  of  bronze  and  iron  ages,  modern  times. 

2.  Grey  culture  layer  (neolithic)  remains  of  forest  fauna. 

3.  Breccia  layer  and  upper  rodent  layer,  without  human  culture;  transition 
fauna  between  steppe  and  forest. 

4.  Yellow  culture  layer  (paleolithic) ;  steppe  fauna,  sub-arctic. 

5.  Lower  rodent  layer,  paleolithic  culture;  fauna  of  the  arctic  tundra. 

6.  Glacial  gravels,  no  animal  remains.  (Redrawn  from  photograph  by  Nuesch.) 


superposed  gray  layer,  and  the  yellow  Paleolithic  cul¬ 
ture  beneath  them.  The  animals  represented  were 
mainly  rodents,  like  rabbits,  squirrels,  dormice,  and 
various  sorts  of  mice  and  rats,  their  bones,  in  places, 
forming  an  ‘ ‘upper  rodent  layer,”  semi-distinct  from 
the  Breccia  layer,  in  which  it  is  included.  The  only 
large  mammal  that  occurs  with  any  frequency  is  the 


42 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


reindeer,  which,  with  many  of  the  rodents,  shows  a 
landscape  in  transition  from  the  steppes  to  the  forest, 
with  a  colder  climate  than  at  present. 

The  yellow  culture  layer,  the  color  of  which  is  due  to 
the  presence  of  innumerable  bones  of  animals,  shows  by 
the  absence  of  pottery  as  well  as  by  the  crude  type  of 
the  stone  implements  included,  to  be  a  deposit  of  typical 
Paleolithic  culture.  The  fauna  indicated  by  these  bones, 
which  are  the  refuse  of  human  feasts,  is  that  of  the  sub¬ 
arctic  steppe,  the  reindeer  predominating,  while  the 
arctic  fox  occurs  in  association  with  his  more  southern 
companion,  the  common  fox  of  the  temperate  zone,  as 
well  as  the  wolf  and  the  bison. 

The  remains  found  in  the  lower  rodent  layer,  still 
lower,  give  us  the  picture  of  the  genuine  arctic  tundra, 
with  its  frozen  bogs,  a  condition  which  immediately  fol¬ 
lowed  the  final  retreat  of  the  ice.  Here  man,  already 
in  possession  of  this  poor  shelter,  pursued  the  reindeer, 
and  other  large  mammals,  skinned  them,  and  made 
himself  clothing  from  their  skins.  This  layer  rested 
immediately  upon  the  gravel  of  the  terminal  moraine, 
deposited  probably  by  the  Wurm  Ice. 

At  the  bottom  of  the  yellow  culture  layer,  and  resting 
directly  upon  the  lower  rodent  layer,  there  was  found  a 
well-built  hearth,  made  of  three  flagstones,  fitted  to¬ 
gether.  They  formed  a  circular  platform  of  some  forty 
to  forty-five  cm.  diameter,  and  covered  with  ashes,  and 
in  these  latter  were  imbedded  several  rounded  cooking 
stones,  the  whole  forming  the  oldest  hearth  site  in  that 
part  of  the  country,  and  one  of  the  oldest  known.  Not 
far  from  this,  but  above  this  level,  in  the  gray  culture 
layer,  a  second  hearth  was  found,  about  which  were 


MATERIAL  AND  METHODS 


43 


placed,  in  a  rough  circle,  a  series  of  stone  blocks  which 
evidently  served  as  seats. 

While  among  the  Paleolithic  deposits  no  trace  of 
human  bones  or  teeth  was  found,  so  that  we  may  con¬ 
clude  that  the  bodies  of  the  dead  were  taken  beyond 
the  immediate  settlement  for  disposal,  the  Neolithic 
people  of  the  gray  culture  layer  made  many  interments 
upon  the  spot.  Here,  naturally,  the  graves  were  dug 
down  through  the  earlier  layers,  and  thus,  over  each 
body  found,  there  was  a  complete  mix-up  of  the  objects 
that  belonged  originally  to  different  layers.  These  dis¬ 
turbances  were  impossible  to  overlook,  and  the  objects 
found  in  all  such  places  were  kept  by  themselves,  as 
being  impossible  to-  classify  with  exactness. 

The  total  number  of  objects  obtained  in  the  investi¬ 
gation  of  this  site,  which  lasted  three  summers,  is  almost 
incredible.  The  soil  was  excavated  entirely  by  hand,  it 
was  subjected  to  several  siftings  in  sieves  of  successively 
finer  and  finer  mesh,  and  each  separate  piece  was  care¬ 
fully  marked.  For  the  better  examination  of  the  objects 
found  a  series  of  tables  were  built  on  the  spot,  and  at 
one  time  at  least  during  the  progress  of  the  work,  no 
fewer  than  twenty-seven  tables  were  entirely  covered 
with  the  materials.  The  richness  of  the  deposits  may 
be  easily  made  out  by  looking  through  Dr.  Niiesch’s 
official  report,  which  speaks,  for  instance  of  the  60,000 
and  more  bones  and  bone  fragments  found.  Of  the 
reindeer  fragments  found  in  the  two  lower  layers  he 
enumerates  12,500  molar  teeth,  420  jaws  and  pieces  of 
jaws,  3,990  phalanges,  910  epiphyses  of  the  humerus, 
and  so  on.  Of  Paleolithic  stone  artifacts  more  than 
140,000  were  found  in  the  yellow  culture  layer  alone, 


44 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


and  to  these  may  be  added  many  hundreds  of  imple¬ 
ments  made  of  bone  or  horn.  These  last  included  awls, 
needles,  both  with  and  without  eyes,  chisels,  arrow  and 
lance  heads,  staffs  of  officials,  and  a  few  etchings. 

At  the  conclusion  of  the  entire  work  the  thousands 
of  objects,  each  piece  carefully  labeled  with  all  the  data, 
were  apportioned  out  among  specialists,  and  reported 
upon.  The  animal  remains,  the  Neolithic  human  skele¬ 
tons,  the  geological  conditions,  even  the  various  sorts  of 
coal,  and  an  analysis  of  the  soil  of  the  country,  were 
made  subjects  of  professional  study  by  specialists,  after 
which  the  total  material  was  deposited  in  various  mu¬ 
seums  in  the  neighborhood,  for  further  inspection. 

13.  Caverns,  and  the  Remains  Found  in  Them ;  Cave 
Paintings. — While  it  is  apparent  that  glacial  man,  dur¬ 
ing  the  long  intervals  between  successive  ice  ages,  and 
in  the  extensive  ice-free  areas  of  the  ice  ages  themselves, 
lived  largely  in  the  open,  and  made  himself  master  of 
field  and  forest,  it  is  also  true  that  he  was  wont  to 
employ  the  natural  shelter  afforded  by  caverns,  wherever 
such  were  available,  as  a  protection  from  wild  beasts, 
and  from  the  rigors  of  winter  weather.  In  regions 
where  caverns  are  abundant,  and  where  a  choice  between 
several  is  possible,  the  general  preferences  of  early  man — 
judging  from  the  location  of  the  signs  of  habitation — 
were  much  like  our  own,  and  thus  the  dwelling  caves 
possess  as  a  rule  a  fairly  level  floor,  they  are  easy  of 
access  and  well  lighted,  and  usually  open  toward  the 
south. 

In  judging  of  the  former  accessibility  of  a  given  cave 
one  must  not  conclude  too  much  from  present  condi¬ 
tions,  for  the  time  of  the  cave-men,  at  least  in  Europe, 


MATERIAL  AND  METHODS 


45 


was  very  long  ago,  and  among  other  surface  changes 
the  river  valleys  have  deepened  considerably,  so  that 
many  a  cave,  once  situated  almost  on  a  level  with  a  river 
bank,  and  easily  accessible  from  along  the  beach,  is  now 
high  and  dry  on  the  mountain  side,  far  above  the  stream 
that  runs  along  the  bottom  of  a  deep  ravine.  The  early 
cave  dweller  thus  walked  easily  enough  in  and  out  of  an 
opening,  to  reach  which  the  modern  archeologist  has 
need  of  ropes  and  scaling  ladders. 

Again,  while  in  general  easy  accessibility  is  an  advan¬ 
tage  to  a  cave-dweller,  there  are  occasionally  conditions 
under  which  this  very  quality  is  a  positive  disadvan¬ 
tage,  since  it  invites  hostile  attack,  and  renders  the  right¬ 
ful  inhabitant  insecure.  Such  was  the  case,  for  example, 
among  the  American  cliff-dwellers,  who  made  their 
homes  as  inaccessible  as  possible,  and  rendered  them 
available  to  their  friends  by  a  system  of  ladders,  which 
could  be  pulled  up  at  night,  or  in  case  of  an  attack. 

In  Europe  the  most  celebrated  caverns  are  found  in 
southern  France  and  northern  Spain,  and  in  the  region 
about  the  head  of  the  Adriatic,  and  extending  down  the 
eastern  shore  of  that  sea,  the  region  known  as  the  Carso 
or  Karst.  In  the  former  localities  are  found  plentiful 
remains  of  glacial  man,  as  well  as  of  those  who  lived 
soon  after  the  last  retreat  of  the  ice;  in  the  latter 
regions,  the  remains  in  general  are  those  of  men  of  the 
Neolithic  times,  and  of  the  later  Bronze  and  Iron  Ages. 
Still,  the  Carso  has  as  yet  received  much  less  attention 
than  have  the  regions  further  west,  and  much  may  be 
learned  from  the  limestone  shores  of  the  Adriatic. 

The  caves  of  Prance  and  Spain  have  long  yielded 
plentiful  artifacts  from  the  deposits  scattered  over  the 


4  6 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


floor,  and  within  the  past  few  years  their  wails  and 
ceilings  have  attracted  even  more  attention  from  the 
vast  numbers  of  paintings,  executed  in  a  bold  and  accu- 


Fig.  8. — Plan  of  the  cavern  at  Altamira,  traced  by  M.  Har'.ein,  1S03. 
A,  entrance;  B,  vestibule,  filled  with  a  mass  of  kitchen  refuse 
and  many  pieces  of  rock  fallen  from  the  ceiling;  C,  hall  on  the 
left,  with  large  frescoes;  D,  fallen  rocks  forming  a  wall;  E,  gal¬ 
lery  on, the  right,  leading  to  the  hall;  F,  where  one  descends  a 
cascade  of  stalagmites;  G,  and  in  to  which  there  opens  a  recess; 
H,  ornamented  with  red  figures;  I,  gallery  covered  with  great 
blocks  fallen  from  the  ceiling;  J,  vaulted  hall,  with  an  alcove; 
J,  K,  cascades  of  stalagamites  leading  to  a  large  hall ;  L,  in 
the  form  of  a  nave,  and  with  a  shallow  well  or  pit;  M,  near  the 
end;  N,  a  terminal  passage.  The  main  frescoes  appear  on  the 
walls  and  ceilings  throughout  the  cavern,  but  occur  especially 
in  halls  C  and  E,  near  the  entrance.  At  places,  as  at  K,  the 
floor  descends  rapidly.  The  entire  length  of  the  cavern  is  280 
meters.  (After  Cartailhac,  from  L’ Anthropologie.) 


rate  style,  and  portraying  the  animals  of  the  latter  part 
of  the  great  Ice  Age,  the  actual  contemporaries  of  the 
artists.  Many  of  the  caves  are  literally  lined  with  hun¬ 
dreds  of  bisons,  bears,  horses,  and  oxen,  while  the  rhi- 


MATERIAL  AND  METHODS 


47 


noeeros  and  mammoth  served  also  as  models.  The  paint¬ 
ings  were  executed,  generally  at  about  half  life-size, 
in  incised  lines  on  the  flatter  rock  surfaces,  and  usually 
colors  were  rubbed  in  over  the  areas  thus  defined.  The 
black  used  was  mainly  charcoal,  the  reds  and  yellows 
were  furnished  by  various  ochres,  and  the  white  by 
chalk,  and  in  the  stillness  of  the  caves  these  mineral 
colors  have  remained  as  new.  Sculpture  has  long  been 
known  in  the  form  of  little  statuettes  of  ivory  or  bone, 
found  among  the  deposits  at  the  bottom,  but  within  a 
few  years  a  room,  deep  in  the  cavern  of  Tuc  d  ’ Audou- 
bert,  on  the  French  side  of  the  Pyrenees,  was  opened 
up  to  the  explorers,  and  there  were  found  two  clay 
bisons  of  about  half  size,  a  male  following  a  female,  and 
in  the  clay  of  the  floor  were  the  footprints  of  the  Paleo¬ 
lithic  sculptors,  made  as  they  left  the  sacred  chamber 
for  the  last  time.  Recently,  also,  in  the  same  general 
region  life-size  horses  in  high  relief,  were  found  quite  in 
the  open,  upon  the  face  of  the  cliff. 

But  while  these  mural  paintings  and  sculptures,  in 
part  from  their  recency  of  discovery  and  in  part  because 
of  their  really  great  artistic  merit,  are  holding  much 
of  the  world  \s  attention — that  of  others  besides  archeolo¬ 
gists — the  accumulated  kitchen  refuse  deposited  on  the 
cave  floors,  and  marking  the  actual  site  of  the  dwellings 
and  hearths  of  early  man,  yields  an  inexhaustible  sup¬ 
ply  of  priceless  documents,  describing,  in  plain  and 
unmistakable  language,  the  actions  of  the  daily  life. 
Often,  too,  the  same  cave  that  furnishes  these  deposits 
has  also,  perhaps  in  the  darker  recesses,  a  gallery  of 
paintings,  evidently  intended  for  display  by  lamplight, 
and  in  several  cases  the  actual  lamps  have  been  found, 


48 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  TAST 


sitting  upon  the  floor  at  the  base  of  some  special  paint¬ 
ing,  hollow,  disc-shaped  stones,  with  indications  of  the 
oils  or  fats  that  once  fed  them. 

As  these  caverns  are  roughly  contemporary  with  the 
Ice  Age,  the  bottom  layer  of  the  deposits  was  for  the 
most  part  laid  down  at  that  time,  and  here  are  found  the 
remains,  not  only  of  the  cave  bear  and  hyena,  but  occa¬ 
sionally  those  of  glacial  man.  Further  up  toward  the 
surface  occur  the  remains  of  later  periods  in  chrono¬ 
logical  succession,  and  upon  the  surface  may  be  picked 
up  broken  pieces  of  Roman  and  medieval  pottery.  The 
artifacts  found  in  these  deposits  may  be  simply  im¬ 
bedded  in  the  clay  of  the  cavern  floor,  or  may  be  still 
more  permanently  encased  in  a  deposit  of  lime,  fur¬ 
nished  by  the  drip  of  water  from  the  ceiling  and  form¬ 
ing  in  places  the  well-known  stalactites  and  stalagmites. 
Such  limestone  masses,  the  breccia,  with  their  imbedded 
artifacts,  such  as  flints,  the  broken  and  split  bones  of 
food  animals,  charcoal,  broken  pottery,  and  so  on,  fur¬ 
nish  most  important  documents  of  the  activities  of  the 
successive  periods. 

The  limestone  region  of  the  Carso  has  been  a  scene 
of  excessive  activity  in  cave  formation,  and  as  such  is 
of  the  greatest  interest  to  the  geologist.  In  places  the 
earth  is  absolutely  honeycombed  with  the  tortuous  gal¬ 
leries  and  passages  characteristic  of  this  type  of  erosion, 
and  at  frequent  intervals  the  surface  has  dropped 
through,  over  an  area  varying  from  a  few  square  feet 
to  a  number  of  acres,  breaking  into  a  cavern  or  a  series 
of  them,  and  thus  giving  easy  access  to  spaces  that 
otherwise  would  remain  unknown.  These  sink-holes,  as 
they  are  technically  called  in  America,  are  known  in 


MATERIAL  AND  METHODS 


40 


the  Carso  by  the  Slavic  word  dolina,  literally,  a  valley, 
and  are  so  numerous  in  certain  localities  that  they  im¬ 
part  an  undulating  appearance  to  the  whole  country. 
Sometimes  a  cavern  mouth  is  simply  an  opening  revealed 
by  the  dropping  of  the  sink-hole;  sometimes  it  is  the 
natural  outlet  for  the  stream  of  water  that  was  respon¬ 
sible  for  the  formation  of  the  cave.  In  some  cases  there 
is  no  sink-hole,  and  a  cavern  is  revealed  by  one  or  two 
small  openings  in  the  ceiling,  where  the  roof  has  become 
very  thin,  and  is  so  near  the  surface  that  it  has  broken 
through  from  above. 

While  in  the  caves  of  western  Europe  there  are  found 
plentiful  remains  of  the  men  of  the  late  Ice  Age,  those 
showing  the  typical  Paleolithic  culture,  the  region  of 
the  Carso  is  singularly  barren  in  artifacts  of  these  early 
times.  Neolithic  remains  are  everywhere  abundant, 
and  in  certain  places  the  history  of  the  entire  Bronze 
culture,  from  the  earliest  essays  at  shaping  copper  to 
the  time  of  the  introduction  of  iron  and  later,  may  be 
read  as  a  continuous  history ;  but  there  fails  thus  far 
all  definite  proof  that  Paleolithic  man  ever  actually  lived 
in  this  part  of  Europe.  There  is  in  the  museum  at 
Trieste,  it  is  true,  a  cave-bear  skull,  found  in  a  cave  in 
Nabresina,  and  bearing  over  the  right  temple  a  broken 
bone,  but  the  healing  of  the  bone  over  this  spot  shows 
definitely  that  the  accident  had  occurred  long  before 
the  death  of  the  animal,  and  we  have  no  idea  of  the 
land  where  this  blow,  directed  by  human  intelligence, 
struck  home.  The  bear  was  a  large  one,  and  it  is  quite 
possible  that  he  had  become  acquainted  with  the  strength 
and  cunning  of  men  in  Prance  or  Spain  years  before 
his  peaceful  ending  near  Trieste. 


50 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  TAST 


Thus  far,  in  the  study  of  both  caves  and  rock  shelters, 
we  have  considered  only  those  spots  where  the  ceilings 
are  high  enough  to  allow  men  to  live  and  engage  in  the 
various  activities  of  life.  There  are  also  to  be  consid¬ 
ered  the  numerous  low  passages  that  serve  as  catch-basins 
for  surface  water,  or  as  sewers  through  which  water  may 
flow,  bringing  with  it  whatever  objects  may  be  brought, 
mainly  bones,  and  sealing  them  up  in  clay  in  the  deeper 
hollows.  The  spot  near  Diisseldorf,  in  Germany,  from 
which  the  famous  Neanderthal  skeleton  was  taken,  was  of 


flooding  from  the  river  at  a  time  when  this  latter  stood  at  about  the  level 
of  the  mouth,  although  surface  leaves  and  other  debris  have  undoubtedly 
been  introduced  also  through  the  Assure  (b).  The  river  is  aow  at  (c).  The 
proportions  of  this  grotto,  and  of  the  fissure  leading  to  it  are  much  exag¬ 
gerated;  otherwise,  if  drawn  in  the  true  proportions,  the  fissure  would  look 
like  a  mere  line.  (After  Lyell.) 


MATERIAL  AND  METHODS 


51 


this  latter  type,  and  consisted  of  a  narrow  fissure,  com¬ 
municating  both  with  the  surface  of  an  upper  level, 
and  with  the  side  of  a  ravine  near  by,  some  hundred 
feet  or  so  above  the  little  stream  of  the  Diissel,  run¬ 
ning  along  the  bottom.  At  the  time  when  this  river, 
which  has  undoubtedly  been  responsible  for  the  excava¬ 
tion  of  the  entire  ravine,  was  at  the  level  of  the  opening 
now  found  high  up  on  its  side,  several  bones  of  bear  and 
rhinoceros  were  washed  in,  either  from  above,  or  more 
likely  by  being  washed  in  at  the  lower  opening  at  the 
time  of  some  high  water.  Ultimately  these  bones  became 
securely  buried,  either  by  the  washing  in  of  sand  from 
the  river,  or  of  dust  and  dead  leaves  down  through  the 
upper  opening,  and  as  the  river  deepened  continuously, 
there  eventually  must  have  come  a  time  after  which  the 
river  could  never  again,  even  with  the  highest  water,  in¬ 
vade  the  little  fissure,  and  the  bones  were  left  in  peace. 
This  cavern,  from  its  size  and  position,  could  never  have 
been  used  as  the  home  of  early  man,  and  must  be  re¬ 
garded  rather  as  a  crypt,  in  which  the  bones,  by  the 
merest  chance,  found  a  burial  at  the  hands  of  natural 
forces.  So  small  that  it  evaded,  not  only  exploration, 
but  even  discovery,  the  fissure  with  its  precious  contents 
was  brought  to  light  by  workmen  in  1857,  who  were  dig¬ 
ging  out  material  for  constructing  a  road,  and  as  this 
practical  work  was  continued  then  and  later,  there  is 
now  left  no  trace  of  the  site. 

Somewhat  akin  to  a  natural  crypt,  where  human  bones 
and  other  remains  may  be  unintentionally  buried,  is  the 
intentional  use  of  a  small  cave,  or  a  small  recess  in  a 
cave,  as  a  place  for  interment.  Cave  burials  among  primi¬ 
tive  peoples  are  by  no  means  uncommon,  and  thus  it  was 


52 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


no  unusual  thing1  for  a  sheik  like  Abraham  to  purchase 
a  cave  to  serve  as  a  burial  place  for  his  wife  Sarah  and 
himself.  A  typical  Paleolithic  cave  burial  was  unearthed 
in  southern  France  in  1852,  but  as  the  time  of  discovery 
was  before  the  true  significance  of  the  facts  had  been 
learned,  little  benefit  came  from  the  excavation.  A  work- 


V  '■  -  ^ 


Fig.  10. — Diagram  of  the  famous  rabbit  burrow  at  Aurignac.  (a),  the  opening  of 
the  rabbit  burrow  that  led  to  the  discovery;  (b),  the  culture  layer,  2  feet 
thick.  This  is  a  bone  breccia,  filled  with  the  bones  of  animals  used  for 
food,  and  containing  worked  flints;  (c)  layers  of  ashes  and  charcoal  at  the 
mouth  of  the  cave,  and  wholly  outside  of  the  slab.  This  contains  also  _ni- 
mal  bones,  cooking-stones,  and  other  artifacts.  (d),  slab  placed  to  cover 
the  mouth  of  the  cave,  and  set  through  the  culture-layer  (b) ;  (e),  heap  of 
seventeen  human  skeletons,  interred  in  the  grotto;  (f),  talus,  washed  down 
from  the  top  soil  above  the  grotto,  and  entirely  filling  in  the  angle  between 
the  slab  and  the  shelf;  (g),  the  bed  rock  of  the  region,  a  nummelitic  limestone. 
(After  Lyell.) 


man,  pursuing  a  rabbit,  followed  it  to  the  mouth  of  its 
burrow,  where  the  animal  disappeared.  The  man,  reach¬ 
ing  in  his  hand,  drew  forth,  not  the  rabbit,  but  a  human 
bone.  This  led  to  an  excavation,  which  revealed  the 
conditions  shown  in  the  diagram.  The  limits  of  the  orig¬ 
inal  cavern  are  shown  by  the  irregular  line  bounding 


MATERIAL  AND  METHODS 


the  bed  rock,  a  nummelitic  limestone  (gg).  There  was 
formed  a  covered  grotto,  outside  of  which  was  an  open 
shelf,  without  roof,  overlooking  the  ravine.  That  this 
site,  so  suitable  as  a  home  for  early  man,  must  have  long 
been  used  as  such,  is  shown  by  the  two  culture  deposits, 
b  and  c,  which  rest  upon  the  original  floor.  Layer  c,  six 
inches  in  thickness,  consists  largely  of  ashes  and  char¬ 
coal,  interspersed  with  the  gnawed  and  split  bones  of 
both  extinct  and  recent  mammals,  as  well  as  many  hearth¬ 
stones,  and  other  artifacts ;  the  whole  showing  definitely 
that  the  fire  was  always  kindled  in  the  open  part,  before 
the  mouth  of  the  cave.  Above  this,  and  spread  quite 
evenly  over  both  open  and  covered  portions,  is  a  second 
culture  layer,  two  feet  in  thickness,  made  up  of  what 
is  usually  found  in  such  deposits,  the  bones  of  animals, 
many  artifacts,  and  a  few  human  bone  fragments, 
strongly  suggestive  of  cannibalism. 

After  a  long  period  of  such  occupancy  the  grotto  was 
finally  used  as  a  place  of  interment.  The  mouth  was 
sealed  up  by  the  slab  d,  evidently  a  precaution  against 
the  depredation  of  hyenas,  the  marks  of  whose  teeth 
were  found  on  the  bones  outside  the  slab.  Within, 
forming  the  mass  e,  entirely  distinct  from  the  layer 
beneath  it,  were  found  seventeen  human  skeletons,  of 
both  sexes  and  all  ages.  Unfortunately  the  time  of  dis¬ 
covery  was  too  early  for  profitable  study,  and  after  a 
brief  inspection,  the  bones,  at  the  mandate  of  the 
mayor  of  the  town,  were  all  reinterred  in  the  parish 
cemetery ! 

14.  Kitchen-Middens. — These  are  the  refuse  heaps 
accumulated  by  primitive  people  through  the  ordinary 
activities  of  life.  They  naturally  consist  mainly  of  the 


54 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


refuse  from  food,  but  in  part  also  of  broken  pottery, 
rejected  implements,  and  occasionally  some  more  valu¬ 
able  object,  accidentally  lost.  Ordinarily  the  accumu¬ 
lated  garbage  is  mainly  of  a  perishable  nature;  such 
heaps  simply  add  a  little  to  the  soil,  and  through  re¬ 
peated  rains  and  snows,  may  become  entirely  leveled  and 
inconspicuous.  When,  however,  such  heaps  occur  along 
the  seashore,  where  the  diet  consists  largely  of  oysters, 
clams,  or  other  mollusks,  the  vast  accumulations  of  shells 
form  bulky  deposits  of  a  permanent  nature,  the  so-called 
“shell-mounds.”  The  classical  territory  where  these 
were  first  carefully  studied  is  along  the  shores  of  the 
Danish  peninsula  with  its  accompanying  islands,  but 
shell-mounds  are  very  widely  distributed — for  example, 
along  the  entire  coast-line  of  both  Americas,  from 
Canada  to  Tierra  del  Fuego.  The  Danish  shell-mounds, 
to  which  the  term  “ Kjokken-moddinger”  (kitchen-mid¬ 
dens)  was  first  applied,  consist  largely  of  oyster  shells, 
and  form  deposits  of  many  feet  in  thickness,  the  oldest 
deposit  being  naturally  at  the  bottom.  These  shells  are 
interspersed  with  the  bones  and  teeth  of  the  animals 
that  served  as  food,  pieces  of  primitive  pottery,  and 
many  stone  implements,  mainly  of  types  intermediate 
between  the  cruder  sort  with  rough  surface,  and  the 
smooth  types  of  later  times,  paleoliths  and  neolitlis  re¬ 
spectively.1 

The  American  shell-mounds  show  every  indication  of 
having  been  the  work  of  the  present  race  of  Indians,  al¬ 
though  the  absence  of  all  possible  objects  of  European 

1Tlie  best  collection  of  objects  from  the  Danish  kjoTcken- 
moddinger  is  that  in  the  Danish  National  Museum  at  Copen¬ 
hagen,  and  represents  that  successive  labors  of  several  noted 
curators,  Thomsen,  Worsaae,  and  Soplius  Muller. 


MATERIAL  AND  METHODS 


55 


origin  or  influence,  such  as  iron  or  glass,  as  well  as  the 
presence  of  the  remains  of  animals  now  extinct  or  ban¬ 
ished  to  other  regions,  e.  g.,  the  great  auk  and  the  polar 
bear,  show  them  to  be  for  the  most  part  ancient,  or  at 
least  precolumbian.  As  everywhere  in  such  deposits, 


A 


Fig.  11. — Illustrations  from  Jeffries  Wyman’s  classical  article,  “An  Account  of 
Some  Kj oekkenmoedings,  or  Shell-heaps,  in  Maine  and  Massachusetts.’’ 

(a)  View  of  Crouch’s  Cove  on  Lower  Goose  Island,  Casco  Bay,  'Maine,  where 
important  early  work  on  American  shell  heaps  was  done. 

(b)  Wyman’s  party  excavating  at  the  spot  shown  in  (a)  during  the  summer 
of  1867.  (After  Wyman,  in  American  Naturalist,  Vol.  I,  1868.1 


56 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


the  contents  of  these  shell-mounds  are  highly  instructive, 
and  a  large  collection  contains  practically  all  the  more 
durable  objects  connected  with  the  daily  life  of  the 
people  that  accumulated  them.  The  first  scientific  study 
of  American  shell-mounds,  aside  from  some  desultory 
examinations,  was  done  by  Professor  Jeffries  Wyman,  of 
Harvard  University,  during  the  summer  of  1867.  Wyman 
excavated  mounds  on  Mt.  Desert  Island,  Maine,  and  on 
Lower  Goose  Island  in  Casco  Bay,  in  the  same 
state,  also  made  further  study  at  Eagle  Hill,  Ipswich, 
Mass. 

In  Casco  Bay  sites  there  have  been  found  great  quan¬ 
tities  of  the  bones  of  moose,  deer,  bear,  seal,  raccoon, 
skunk  and  dog,  many  species  of  birds,  one  of  which, 
commonly  found,  is  the  great  auk,  fragments  of  land 
turtles,  and  the  remains  of  all  the  local  fishes,  including 
the  sturgeon  and  halibut,  as  well  as  others  not  usually 
used  as  food.  The  pottery  found,  although  frequent, 
consists  almost  wholly  of  badly  broken  fragments  of  small 
size,  although  in  a  few  cases  a  sufficient  number  of  pieces 
has  been  found  to  make  a  reconstruction  possible.  These 
prove  to  be  mostly  in  the  form  of  large  kettles  so  shaped 
that  they  could  be  hung  over  a  fire,  and  were  undoubt¬ 
edly  used  as  cooking  pots.  Many  of  the  shards  are  dec¬ 
orated  with  patterns,  marked  in  the  clay  when  soft, 
consisting  of  parallel  and  cross  lines  of  simple  geometric 
designs. 

As  in  the  Danish  mounds,  stone  implements,  both 
broken  and  entire,  are  frequent,  and  consist  not 
only  of  tools,  such  as  axes  and  gouges,  and  of  weapons, 
like  hatchets  and  arrow  points,  but  include  also  those 
indicative  of  the  lighter  side  of  life,  as  ornaments  of 


MATERIAL  AND  METHODS  57 

various  sorts,  and  objects  probably  ceremonial,  and  used 
in  their  worship.1 

Corresponding  to  the  distribution  of  the  present  mol- 
luscan  fauna,  the  bulk  of  such  a  deposit  is  composed  of 
the  shells  of  the  commonest  local  species;  soft-shelled 
clams  in  Casco  Bay,  hard-shelled  clams  (quahogs)  in 
some  other  places,  and  oysters  in  New  Jersey.  The  ex¬ 
tensive  shell-mounds  along  the  shores  of  the  Chesapeake 
often  cover  several  acres  in  a  continuous  formation, 
and  may  reach  a  depth  of  twenty  feet.  A  single  mound 
of  gigantic  proportions  lies  about  the  mouth  of  the  Dam- 
ariscotta  River  in  Maine,  and  forms  a  mass  estimated  to 
contain  eight  million  cubic  feet,  wholly  of  oyster  shells. 
This  enormous  mound  may  be  explained  on  the  hypoth¬ 
esis  that  this  point  was  for  a  long  time  a  gathering  place 
for  an  entire  tribe,  who  at  certain  seasons  of  the  year,  un¬ 
doubtedly  in  summer,  resorted  to  the  coast  for  the  ex¬ 
press  purpose  of  eating  these  mollusks. 

In  the  bottom  of  shell-mounds,  human  skeletons,  al¬ 
though  infrequent,  occasionally  occur,  pointing  to  either 
a  hasty  interment,  or  to  one  occurring  in  winter,  when 
the  ground  was  frozen.  Considering,  however,  the  many 
indications  that  these  mounds  are  the  remains  of  sum- 
mer  camps,  such  as  the  lack  of  any  indications  of  the 

*The  classic  paper  on  Indian  shell-mounds  in  America  is  that 
of  Jeffries  Wyman,  “An  Account  of  some  Kjoekken-moeddings, 
or  shell-heaps,  in  Maine  and  Massachusetts,”  American  Nat., 
Vol.  I,  January,  1868,  pp.  561-584.  Wyman’s  principal  site  was 
at  Crouch’s  Cave,  Lower  Goose  Island,  in  Casco  Bay,  Me.;  and 
in  the  summer  of  1911  an  expedition  from  Amherst  College, 
under  the  leadership  of  Professor  Frederick  B.  Loomis,  dug 
through  many  shell-heaps  in  the  same  region,  bringing  back  a 
large  collection  of  objects,  throwing  much  light  on  the  former 
activities  of  the  Indians  in  these  parts.  This  collection  is  now 
in  the  Gilbert  Museum  at  Amherst. 


58 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


how  to  make,  we  cannot  seriously  believe  much  in  the 
more  permanent  dwellings,  which  the  Indians  knew  well 
frozen  soil  theory,  and  look  for  some  more  plausible 
hypothesis. 

15.  Remains  of  Houses  and  Hearths. — As  pointed  out 
above,  in  the  discussion  of  objects  introduced  into  a  de¬ 
posit  foreign  to  them,  each  sort  of  deposit  has  a  definite 
structure,  the  result  of  the  action  of  the  forces  leading 
to  its  formation,  and  thus  if  a  piece  of  ground,  where 
two  or  more  deposits  are  mixed,  be  examined  in  sec¬ 
tion,  the  relation  of  the  separate  elements  becomes  ap¬ 
parent.  The  construction  of  a  hut  or  other  structure 
that  involves  any  disturbance  of  the  soil,  such  as  the 
driving  in  of  a  stake  or  post,  may  produce  a  permanent 
derangement,  easily  revealed  by  a  careful  excavator.  In 
this  way,  through  simply  digging  a  series  of  parallel 
trenches,  and  studying  the  sections  thus  made,  the  re¬ 
mains  of  primitive  structures  may  be  brought  to  light, 
although  no  stone  or  other  lasting  material  may  have 
been  used  in  their  construction,  and  although  there  may 
be  neither  elevation  nor  depression  to  mark  the  site.  A 
post  driven  into  the  soil  and  left  to  rot  in  place  will  often 
leave  a  mass  of  dark  loam  to  replace  its  subterranean 
portion,  which,  in  a  light  sandy  soil,  or  other  contrasting 
material,  will  be  very  conspicuous  in  a  smooth  section. 
Even  a  pit  or  excavation,  filled  in  subsequently  by  wash¬ 
ings  from  the  surface,  and  brought  up  to  the  general 
level,  will  often  record  its  exact  shape  and  size  in  sec¬ 
tion  by  revealing  the  difference  between  the  earth  washed 
in  and  that  of  the  undisturbed  soil  in  which  the  pit 
was  originally  dug. 

Fig.  12  shows  sketches  of  the  excavation  of  a  Neo- 


MATERIAL  AND  METHODS 


59 


lithic  manor-house,  or  communal  farmstead,  upon  the 
plain  near  Stiitzheim,  Germany.  The  figure  on  the  left 
is  the  ground  plan,  the  several  figures  on  the  right  are 
successive  cross-sections  through  the  soil  along  the 
planes  indicated  on  the  ground  plan. 


Fig.  12. — A  neolithic  farmstead;  ground  plan  and  sections.  (After  Forrer,  modified.) 


The  floor  of  the  structure  was  sunken  below  the  sur¬ 
face  level,  and  the  house  must  have  been  built  with  low 
walls  and  sloping  roof  in  some  way  not  shown  in  the 
excavation.  There  were  seven  entrances,  one  at  either 
end  (west  and  east),  three  upon  the  south  and  two  upon 


<>0  MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 

the  north.  Section  a  is  cut  through  a  lateral  entrance, 
also  through  an  isolated  pit,  serving  doubtless  as  a  gran¬ 
ary  or  storehouse ;  b  passes  through  an  elevated  bench  or 
seat,  formed  simply  by  leaving  the  natural  earth  in 
place,  Avhen  the  original  excavation  for  the  floor  of  the 
main  room  took  place.  This  seat  is  placed  in  close 
proximity  to  the  fireplace,  here  indicated  by  the  pile  of 
debris  (kitchen-midden)  that  has  collected  about  it,  and 
the  coals  of  the  fire.  This  spot  must  have  literally 
formed  the  focus  or  hearth,  for  concentrating  the  family 
life  during  the  winter  months.  The  same  section  cuts 
through  an  entrance  on  the  north.  Section  c  cuts 
through  two  entrances,  placed  opposite  each  other,  and 
forming  a  passage  quite  through  the  middle  of  the  house, 
while  section  d  cuts  through  a  third  entrance  on  the 
south  side.  At  e  a  grave  was  met  with,  excavated  in  the 
floor,  pointing  to  a  death  during  the  winter,  when  the 
soil  was  frozen  too  hard  to  allow  digging  outside. 

It  is  to  be  noted  that  this  entire  structure,  so  eloquent 
of  early  conditions,  and  furnishing  so  much  detail,  was 
indicated  solely  by  the  arrangement  of  the  different 
kinds  of  soil,  and  with  the  exception  of  the  skeleton  and 
the  kitchen-midden,  contained  no  culture  objects.  Any¬ 
thing  but  the  most  careful  digging,  with  the  separate 
cross-sections  finished  by  shaving  down  the  sides  of  each 
trench  with  a  mason’s  trowel  or  large  knife,  would  have 
given  nothing  whatever  of  the  house  or  the  proper  rela¬ 
tion  of  the  kitchen-midden  or  the  skeleton.  The  method 
is  similar  to  that  used  by  morphologists  with  serial  sec¬ 
tions  through  some  small  animal,  and  can  be  expected 
to  yield  as  much  as  the  separate  sections  can  be  made  to 
reveal. 


MATERIAL  AND  METHODS 


61 


House  sites  practically  always  display  a  definite  place 
for  the  hearth,  as  indicated  by  ashes  and  pieces  of  char¬ 
coal,  both  substances  practically  imperishable  when  once 
imbedded  in  undisturbed  soil ;  frequently,  too,  there  are 
definite  associated  structures,  such  as  a  layer  or  rampart 
of  partially  baked  clay,  originally  intended  to  confine 
the  fire  within  its  proper  limits.  Often,  in  association 
with  the  traces  of  a  hearth  fire,  occur  numerous  fire¬ 
stones,  small  boulders  of  the  size  of  the  fist  or  a  little 
larger,  which  were  first  heated  in  the  fire  and  then  sud¬ 
denly  plunged  into  a  vessel  containing  water,  thus  bring¬ 
ing  the  latter  to  a  boil  by  imparting  their  heat  to  it. 
This  is  the  method  employed  even  today  among  primi¬ 
tive  people  in  cooking  meat,  and  is  naturally  the  only 
practical  method  among  a  people  unable  to  make  a 
water-container  that  will  stand  direct  exposure  to  a  fire 
placed  beneath  it.  The  receptacle  in  which  the  meat  is 
boiled  by  means  of  fire-stones  may  consist  merely  of  a 
hollow  in  the  ground,  lined  with  clay  or  with  the  skin 
of  a  beast,  both  expedients  being  resorted  to  among  the 
American  Indians,  at  the  time  of  the  early  European 
explorers. 

The  simple  presence  of  charcoal,  unattended  by  other 
signs  of  human  activity,  must  be  disregarded  as  probably 
the  result  of  spontaneous  forest  fires,  which  may  be 
kindled  in  a  variety  of  ways  in  which  man  is  not  in¬ 
volved  ;  but  localized  traces  of  fire  in  direct  connection 
either  with  fire-pits,  fire-stones,  a  clay  circle,  or  the  re¬ 
mains  of  feasts,  speak  definitely  of  a  fire  built  and  used 
purposely,  by  man,  technically,  a  hearth.  Such  hearths 
may  be  either  the  definitely  localized  areas  found  in 
association  with  house  sites,  or  the  more  diffuse  layers 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


62 

occurring  at  the  mouth  of  caverns ;  they  also  occur  in 
the  form  of  fire- pits.  These  consist  of  inverted  cones 
of  partly  burnt  clay  mixed  with  charcoal,  about  a  foot 
in  diameter  and  perhaps  twice  as  deep.  They  were 
originally  pits  sunk  in  the  earth,  in  the  bottom  of  which 
a  fire  could  be  kindled  and  kept  for  a  long  time,  thus 
shielded  from  the  wind.  Precisely  similar  fire-pits  are 
employed  at  the  present  day  by  gangs  of  Italian  work¬ 
men,  when  working  on  the  highways  and  on  railroads,  at  . 
some  distance  from  suitable  houses. 

16.  Ti  nee  Houses  and  Lake  Dwellings.  —  Primitive 
people,  living  in  a  wilderness  unmodified  by  human  in¬ 
fluence,  are  exposed  to  the  constant  menace  of  wild 
beasts,  or  of  still  more  dreaded  human  marauders,  far 
more  than  may  be  readily  understood  by  civilized  mod¬ 
ern  people.  They  are  thus  led  of  necessity  to  take  nu¬ 
merous  precautions  against  an  unforeseen  attack,  and 
strive  especially  to  guard  their  dwellings  against  sur¬ 
prise.  A  frequent  expedient  is  that  of  constructing  a 
hut  high  up  in  the  trees,  selecting  especially  for  that 
purpose  those  that  are  without  lower  limbs,  and  using 
for  ingress  and  egress  a  light  ladder  that  can  be  pulled 
up  at  night.  Such  dwellings  are  still  in  use  in  many 
parts  of  the  world,  notably  Papua,  and  it  is  altogether 
probable  that  similar  structures  have  been  made  in  the 
remote  past.  Of  these,  from  the  nature  of  the  case,  no 
remains  would  be  left,  save,  perhaps,  an  accumulation 
at  the  base  of  the  tree  resembling  a  kitchen-midden. 
Such  a  heap,  found  upon  or  immediately  beneath  the 
surface,  and  entirely  isolated  from  cultural  surround¬ 
ings,  would  appear  as  a  phenomenon  difficult  to  explain, 
except  in  cases  where  a  multiplicity  of  such  isolated 


Fig.  13.— A  tree-house  in  British  New  Guinea.  (After  Schurz.) 


64 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


heaps  would  suggest  the  former  existence  of  an  entire 
village,  propped  up  on  trees. 

A  step  beyond  such  a  tree-village  is  presented  by  the 
erection  of  such  dwellings  upon  artificially  placed 
trunks  or  piles,  driven  into  the  mud  along  the  shallow 
margins  of  lakes,  where  the  inhabitants  can  not  only 
obtain  the  security  of  a  position  high  above  the  surface 
of  the  ground,  but  also  gain  the  additional  advantage 
of  a  constant  supply  of  fresh  fish,  easily  obtained  by  fish¬ 
ing  from  the  house  itself.  As  the  piles  are  all  artificially 
placed,  they  may  be  grouped  together  in  some  definite 
plan,  and  connected  by  wide  platforms,  converting  the 
entire  village  into  a  communal  house  or  compound. 

Instances  of  various  stages,  illustrating  the  growth  of 
the  idea,  and  its  adaptation  to  special  circumstances,  are 
seen  to-day  among  primitive  peoples,  a  marked  example 
of  which  is  met  with  among  the  aborigines  of  the  north¬ 
eastern  coast  of  South  America,  from  which  the  early 
Spanish  explorers  named  the  region  “ Venezuela,”  i.e., 
little  Venice.  Here,  as  usually,  numerous  single  houses 
are  built  in  close  proximity  to  one  another,  and  are  con¬ 
nected  by  common  platforms,  the  whole  forming  an 
extensive  pile  village  extending  out  into  the  water,  and 
capable  of  complete  isolation  from  the  shore. 

During  the  development  of  man  in  Central  Europe 
similar  pile  villages  (“ Pfahlbauten,”  “ Palafittes”) 
played  an  important  part,  especially  along  the  shores 
of  the  Alpine  lakes,  and  these  sites  form  one  of  the 
richest  treasure  houses  of  prehistoric  objects  known  to 
the  world.  Here,  in  those  spots  which  offer  a  shelving 
shore  and  a  considerable  layer  of  soft  mud,  men  have 
lived  continuously  for  hundreds,  and  in  some  cases  thou- 


MATERIAL  AND  METHODS 


(35 


sands  of  years.  During  all  this  time  the  bones  and  other 
solid  refuse  from  their  tables,  broken  tools  and  utensils, 
articles  of  value,  unintentionally  lost,  and  all  such  re¬ 
mains  of  an  active  existence,  were  continually  falling 
from  the  houses  and  platforms  into  the  water,  and  were 
sealed  up  in  the  deep  mud,  from  which  they  are  now 
recovered,  often  in  considerable  profusion.  Occasionally, 
also,  the  bones  of  the  inhabitants  themselves  are  brought 
to  light,  indicative  perhaps  of  some  accident  in  which  a 
body  sank  into  the  mud  and  was  not  recovered. 


Fig.  14.— Reconstruction  of  a  village  of  lake  dwellings  on  the  Lake  of  Zurich, 
based  upon  the  actual  remains.  (After  Forrer.) 


Aside  from  all  such  objects,  the  piles  themselves,  or 
the  larger  part  of  them,  are  often  preserved,  as  well  as 
portions  of  the  superstructures,  and  from  these  it  is 
possible  to  make  out  the  essential  details  of  the  houses, 
at  least  these  of  certain  periods.  In  all  such  recon¬ 
structions  comparisons  with  the  pile  dwellings  of  modern 
times  are  of  great  assistance,  since  similar  needs  and 


66 


MAN'S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


conditions  are  productive  of  similar  results,  often  even 
to  considerable  detail,  and  the  life  of  the  lake  dwellers 
of  the  present  cannot  fail  to  have  much  in  common  with 
that  of  people  who  lived  in  the  same  way  in  the  remote 
past. 


Fig.  15. — Reconstruction  of  two  huts  of  the  Swiss  lake-dwellers,  showing  details. 

(After  Forrer.) 


Perhaps  the  most  important  prehistoric  pile  villages, 
at  least  those  most  carefully  studied,  are  those  of  the 
Swiss  lakes,  where  nearly  two  hundred  distinct  villages 
have  been  investigated.  The  greatest  number  of  these 
occur  on  the  lakes  of  Constance,  Geneva,  Zurich,  Biel  and 
Neuchatel.  Other  lakes  also  have  yielded  important  re¬ 
sults,  and  the  museums  of  Switzerland  and  Northern 
Italy  are  filled  with  the  objects  excavated.1 

Pile  villages  in  a  somewhat  modified  form  were  also 
developed  in  certain  of  the  larger  rivers,  e.  g.,  the  Rhine, 
where  an  island  was  used  as  the  center  of  the  village, 

1  Notable  in  this  respect  are  the  collections  in  Zurich  (Anti- 
quarisches  Museum)  ;  Neuchatel  (Musee  des  Beaux  Arts)  ;  and 
Bologna  (Museo  Civico). 


Fig.  16.— Sketch  map  of  the  Lakes  of  Neuchatel  and  Biel,  Switzerland, 
showing  the  sites  of  lake  villages.  These  belong  to  several 
periods,  extending  from  the  late  Neolithic,  through  the  Bronze 
and  early  Iron  Ages.  The  site  of  La  Tene,  the  scene  of  an  un¬ 
recorded  battle  between  the  natives  and  the  Romans,  gives  its 
name  to  one  of  the  periods  of  the  early  Iron  Age.  The  others, 
for  the  most  part,  are  older.  (After  Munro.) 


68  MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 

and  became  extended  over  the  surrounding  shallows  by 
means  of  piles.  The  famous  island  in  the  Seine  known 
as  La  Cite  and  forming  the  heart  of  Paris,  was  origi¬ 
nally  the  center  of  the  small  Gallic  tribe  of  the  Parisii, 
probably  once  a  similar  structure. 

Somewhat  similar  to  fixed  villages  on  islands,  espe¬ 
cially  when  the  habitable  area  is  increased  by  extension 
of  the  structure  on  piles,  are  the  floating  villages ,  with 
a  substructure  formed  of  tree-trunks,  not  driven  down 
into  the  mud,  but  laid  out  over  the  water,  the  whole 
forming  a  huge  raft,  capable  of  moving  about.  Such 
floating  villages  naturally  yield  artifacts  identical  with 
those  from  stationary  villages,  but  more  scattered,  and 
the  former  existence  of  such  floating  villages  has  been 
established  from  such  remains.  One  of  these  is  thought 
to  have  once  existed  in  the  river  Meuse,  near  Maestricht ; 
and  in  the  Maglemoos,  an  extensive  moor  on  the  island 
of  Seeland,  in  Denmark,  which  must  have  once  been  a 
lake,  the  remains  of  just  such  a  raft  were  found  im¬ 
bedded  in  the  peat,  and  thus  preserved.  Associated  with 
this  raft  were  found  many  thousand  artifacts  of  stone 
and  bone,  also  teeth  of  the  elk  and  urns,  all  character¬ 
istics  of  the  lake-dweller  type  of  culture. 

While  the  lake  dwellers  of  Western  Europe,  includ¬ 
ing  those  of  Switzerland  and  Italy,  were  prehistoric,  a 
certain  few  of  their  villages,  mainly  Swiss,  were  still 
occupied  when  the  land  was  first  explored  by  the  Ro¬ 
mans,  and  in  other  countries,  notably  about  the  Black 
Sea,  several  Greek  travelers  have  studied  and  described 
them.  Hippocrates  thus  describes  the  people  of  the 
Phasis,  a  marshy  region  at  the  eastern  end  of  the  Black 
Sea: 


MATERIAL  AND  METHODS 


69 


“Concerning  the  people  of  the  Phasis,  that  region  is 
marshy  and  hot,  and  full  of  water,  and  woody ;  and  at 
every  season  frequent  and  violent  rains  fall  there.  The 
inhabitants  live  in  the  marshes,  and  have  houses  of  tim¬ 
ber  and  reeds  constructed  in  the  midst  of  the  waters  and 
they  seldom  go  out  to  the  city  or  the  market,  but  sail 
up  and  down  in  boats  made  of  a  single  tree-trunk,  for 
there  are  numerous  canals  in  that  region.  The  water 
they  drink  is  hot  and  stagnant,  putrefied  by  the  sun, 
and  swollen  by  the  rainfall,  and  the  Phasis  itself  is  the 
most  stagnant  and  quiet-flowing  of  all  rivers.  ’  ’ 1 

Herodotus  made  his  observations  upon  the  lake  dwell¬ 
ers  of  Lake  Prasias  in  Rumelia,  near  the  mouth  of  the 
Strymon.  He  says  : 

“Their  manner  of  living  is  the  following:  Platforms 
supported  upon  tall  piles  stand  in  the  middle  of  the 
lake,  which  are  approached  from  the  land  by  a  single 
narrow  bridge.  At  the  first  the  piles  which  bear  up  the 
platform  were  fixed  in  their  places  by  the  whole  body 
of  the  citizens;  but  since  that  time  the  custom  which 
prevails  about  fixing  them  is  this :  they  are  brought  from 
a  hill  called  Orbalus,  and  every  man  drives  in  three  for 
each  wife  that  he  marries.  Now  the  men  have  all  many 
wives  apiece,  and  this  is  the  way  in  which  they  live. 
Each  has  his  own  hut  wherein  he  dwells,  upon  one  of  the 
platforms,  and  each  has  also  a  trap-door,  giving  access  to 
the  lake  beneath ;  and  their  wont  is  to  tie  their  baby  chil¬ 
dren  by  the  foot  with  a  string,  to  save  them  from  rolling 
into  the  water.  They  feed  their  horses  and  their  other 
beasts  on  fish,  which  abound  in  the  lake  to  such  a  degree 
that  a  man  has  only  to  open  his  trap-door  and  to  let 
down  a  basket  by  a  rope  into  the  water,  and  there  to  wait 
a  very  short  time,  when  up  he  draws  it  quite  full  of 
them.” 

17.  Crannogs—  A  form  of  refuge,  often  made  use  of 

1  This  and  the  following  quotation  are  taken  from  Robert 
Munro,  in  his  “Lake-Dwellings  of  Europe,”  London,  1S90,  p.  553. 


70 


MAX’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


by  a  primitive  people  in  time  of  great  tribal  danger,  is 
that  afforded  by  an  island  of  firm  ground  situated  in  the 
midst  of  a  great  marsh  or  swamp,  and  reached  only  with 
extreme  difficulty.  Such  a  spot  is  usually  strengthened 
by  some  artificial  fortification,  such  as  a  palisade,  and 
if  the  ground  be  not  high  enough  of  itself  above  the 
water  level,  the  structures  built  upon  it  are  raised  on 
piles,  as  in  lake  dwellings,  or  the  ground  is  built  up  by 
stones  and  logs. 

Such  swamp  refuges  occur  in  perhaps  their  most  typi¬ 
cal  form  in  Ireland  and  Scotland,  and  bear  the  name  of 
crannog;  they  seem  to  have  played  an  important  role 
during  the  early  development  of  the  Irish  people,  per¬ 
haps  in  the  case  both  of  the  Iberian  aborigines,  and 
their  later  Celtic  invaders,  and  were  used  for  purposes 
of  defense  well  into  the  Middle  Ages.1 

The  crannog  means  of  defense  was  resorted  to  in 
southern  New  England  by  the  Narragansett  Indians  in 
their  last  hold  against  the  English  invaders,  in  1675. 
This  entire  tribe,  after  suffering  sufficiently  at  the  hands 
of  the  English  to  convince  them  of  the  great  superiority 
of  their  enemies,  betook  themselves  to  an  island  in  the 
midst  of  “an  hideous  swamp”  in  South  Kingston,  R.  I., 
and  surrounded  the  bit  of  firm  ground  with  a  palisade 
of  logs.  The  English  waited  until  the  cold  of  the  win¬ 
ter  converted  the  water  to  ice,  thus  making  the  swamp 
passable,  and  then  stormed  the  fort,  slaying  with  sword 

1Munro  ( loc .  cit.)  enumerates  103  crannogs  in  Scotland,  and 
145  in  Ireland.  Of  the  former,  56  were  constructed  wholly,  or 
in  part,  of  wood,  forming  huge  rafts,  or  artificial  islands,  in  the 
swamps.  Many  of  them  show  Roman  contact,  and  proof  that 
they  were  used  as  late  as  the  seventh  century  of  our  era.  In 
certain  of  the  Irish  crannogs  were  found  coins  of  the  three 
Edward’s. 


MATERIAL  AND  METHODS 


71 


and  fire  the  entire  tribe,  men,  women  and  children,  so 
far  as  they  were  able.  This  disastrous  result  showed 
that  while  retirement  into  a  crannog.  may  be  a  fairly 
secure  manner  of  defense  against  an  enemy  of  about  the 
same  degree  of  development  it  is  the  worst  possible  tac¬ 
tics  against  a  superior  foe,  since  by  concentrating  a  tribe 
into  a  single  spot,  it  makes  a  complete  extermination 
possible. 

To  the  prehistorian,  however,  it  is  this  very  concen¬ 
tration  that  renders  a  crannog  especially  valuable.  As 
a  last  stronghold  of  a  tribe,  there  are  collected  there 
their  most  cherished  possessions,  and  those  that  are  not 
of  a  perishable  nature,  and  are  overlooked  or  trodden 
into  the  soil  in  the  heat  of  victory,  remain  indefinitely 
in  a  very  restricted  area,  awaiting  the  spade  of  the  ex¬ 
cavator.  Thus  “from  the  Crannogs  at  Dunshauglin 
more  than  one  hundred  and  fifty  cart-loads  of  bones  were 
obtained  and  used  as  manure.  ’  ’ 1  These  were,  course, 
mainly  or  wholly  those  of  the  animals  that  served  as 
food,  showing  that  a  crannog  is  practically  a  strictly 
localized  kitchen-midden.  Great  numbers  of  objects  of 
stone  and  bronze,  as  well  as  of  bone  and  horn,  have  been 
collected. 

Aside  from  crannogs  of  British  origin,  quite  typical 
crannogs  are  found  in  various  parts  of  the  continent. 
Thus,  in  northern  Italy  (Parma,  Modena,  Emilia)  they 
are  known  as  terrcmare,  and  in  the  peninsula  of  Istria, 
at  the  upper  end  of  the  Adriatic  Sea,  they  are  called 
castelliere  or  pizzughi.  Many  of  these  have  already 
yielded  much  material. 


1  Lord  Avebury,  “Prehistoric  Times,”  Gth  edition,  1802,  p.  109. 


72 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


18.  Forts  and  Scharrachs. — Aside  from,  crannogs,  the 
occurrence  of  which  is  naturally  restricted  to  a  few  defi¬ 
nite  regions,  the  necessities  of  defense  have  developed 
during  prehistoric  times  numerous  artificial  structures 
which,  when  sufficiently  extensive  to  change  the  surface 
of  the  soil,  remain  to  the  present  day. 

Thus  there  occur,  in  various  parts  of  Europe,  exten¬ 
sive  structures  associated  with  hills,  or  from  whose 
heights  they  bid  defiance.  In  their  simpler  form  they 
consist  of  a  ring  wall  or  enclosure,  usually  an  earth¬ 
work,  but  often  reinforced  by  stone.  More  complicated 
structures  may  enclose  an  entire  hill,  and  include  ram¬ 
parts,  moats,  terraces  and  mounds,  as  though  forming 
the  foundation  for  a  complete  acropolis,  the  material 
for  which  was  largely  of  wood,  and  hence  has  long  since 
disappeared.  Sometimes  a  natural  hill  has  been  re¬ 
shaped  through  extensive  grading  into  the  form  seen  at 
present ;  in  cases,  too,  the  entire  hill  is  an  artificial  one, 
and  must  have  been  due  to  the  efforts  of  the  whole 
tribe,  working  for  a  long  time. 

Owing  to  the  lack  of  historical  perspective  in  the 
popular  mind,  these  works,  in  every  country  where  such 
occur,  are  attributed  to  some  great  struggle  between 
peoples  with  which  the  present  inhabitants  are  tradi¬ 
tionally  acquainted,  and  the  names  commonly  applied 
make  some  allusion  to  historic  peoples.  Thus,  a  structure 
of  this  sort  in  Alsace  is  known  as  the  “  Swedish  ram¬ 
part”;  one  in  Hungary  is  the  “Turkish  fortress,”  and 
so  on.  In  other  cases  the  names  suggest  popular  myth¬ 
ology,  like  the  “fairy  rings”  and  “fairy  fortresses” 
in  Ireland,  while  in  matter-of-fact  England  the  people 
content  themselves  with  calling  them  “rings”  or  “cas- 


MATERIAL  AND  METHODS 


73 


ties”  like  Cissbury  Ring,  Maumbry  Ring,  Maiden  Castle, 
and  the  like. 

As  collective  names  for  all  such  structures,  which,  it 
is  needless  to  say,  are  prehistoric,  and  are  of  Bronze 
Age  origin  at  the  latest,  the  German  archeologists  apply 
the  term  W allburg  (i.e.,  foreign  fortress,  the  word  Wall 
being  the  same  as  that  met  with  in  Wall-nuss,  Wall-fisch , 
etc.,  and  meaning  foreign  or  “  welsch”) .  In  Bohemia, 


Fig.  17. — Landscape,  showing  an  extensive  scharroch,  near  Stronegg,  in  Lower 
Austria.  This  particular  structure  is  known  locally  as  the  “Hausberg,”  per¬ 
haps  preserving  in  the  name  the  memory  of  its  former  use  as  a  habitation. 
(After  Forrer.) 

where  166  of  these  structures  have  already  been  iden¬ 
tified,1  they  are  called  Hradiste  (from  Hrad,  or  Grad, 
a  city  or  citadel.  Cf.  Petro-grad).  There  is  also  the 
Celtic  term  scharrach,  which  is  occasionally  found  as 
the  local  name  for  certain  specific  cases,  and  which  is 
commonly  used  by  the  British  and  American  writers, 
who  employ  Celtic  terms  for  prehistoric  structures  in 

1  Woldrich,  in  Mitt.  Anthrop ,  Gesell ,  Wein  XXIII,  1883, 
pp.  1-38. 


74 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


general.  The  persistance  of  this  word  in  places  outside 
of  Britain  is  seen  in  the  popular  designation  of  one  of 
the  great  examples  of  such  a  structure  in  Alsace,  the 
‘  ‘  Scharrachburg.  ’  ’ 

Scharrachs  vary  in  size  from  insignificant  mounds  to 
complex  citadels,  with  walls  and  moats,  ramparts,  slopes, 
and  terraces.  Some  of  them  are  plainly  built  for  the 
purpose  of  defense,  or  of  enduring  a  siege ;  others  are 
so  extensive  that  there  never  could  have  been  men 
enough  to  serve  as  defenders  of  the  entire  place  at  once, 
suggesting  the  structure  as  organized  for  defense,  not 
against  the  concerted  action  of  men,  but  against  the 
lesser  cunning  of  wild  beasts,  presumably  wolves.  In 
position  some  occupy  heights  among  masses  of  hills; 
some  rise  from  the  plain ;  and  some  are  placed  within  a 
loop  of  a  river.  Certain  of  the  European  scharrachs 
reach  back  well  into  the  Age  of  Stone  (Neolithic),  as 
may  be  proven  by  the  associated  artifacts;  others  are 
mainly  or  wholly  associated  with  the  Age  of  Bronze. 
In  a  few  cases,  as  with  the  crannogs,  scharrachs  may 
come  into  recorded  history,  and  are  remembered  in  au¬ 
thentic  traditions,  as  in  the  case  of  the  “Danevirke” 
near  Kiel,  which  are  known  to  have  been  inhabited  in 
the  eighth  and  ninth  centuries  of  our  era. 

In  the  eastern  United  States  the  early  pioneers  re¬ 
cord  the  position  of  numerous  Indian  villages,  and  allude 
to  them  as  ‘ ‘forts.”  These  were  collections  of  the  native 
huts  or  tents,  surrounded  by  a  palisade  of  logs,  placed 
upright  in  the  ground.  Where  the  palisade  was  placed 
upon  an  earth  embankment  the  latter  would  be  left  after 
the  decay  of  the  wood,  and  present  an  appearance  some¬ 
thing  like  the  “rings”  found  in  Europe;  where  there 


MATERIAL  AND  METHODS  75 

had  been  no  such  embankment,  there  would  be  either  a 
slight  ridge  resulting  from  the  decay  of  the  wood,  or 
not  even  that,  and  the  “fort”  would  disappear,  leaving 
no  trace. 

In  other  cases,  as  with  the  European  scharrachs,  more 
or  less  stone  was  used,  or  incorporated,  in  the  construc¬ 
tion,  and  the  remains  would  have  a  proportional  amount 
of  permanence.  Thus  the  “Queen’s  Fort”  in  southern 
Rhode  Island,  between  North  Kingstown  and  Exeter, 
and  associated  with  the  sunck-squaw,  or  “Queen,” 
Quaiapin,  is  an  irregular  enclosure,  built  upon  a  rocky 
hill,  or  natural  pile  of  rocks.  It  has  a  perimeter  of 
nearly  eight  hundred  feet,  and  is  furnished  with  three 
bastions,  or  extended  angles,  to  guard  the  approaches 
to  the  walls.  This  was  one  of  the  main  strongholds  of 
the  Narragansetts  during  their  wars  with  the  English 
settlers  about  1675,  and  may  easily  have  had  a  history 
in  intertribal  conflicts  long  previous  to  this  date. 

Among  the  numerous  earthworks  of  Ohio  and  Wis¬ 
consin,  there  are  many  structures  which  are  complicated 
in  design  and  somewhat  suggest  certain  of  the  systems 
of  terraces,  ramparts,  and  other  earthern  structures  of 
prehistoric  Europe,  and  like  them  suggest  an  acropolis  or 
metropolitan  center.  Such  a  one  is  the  extensive  system 
of  works  upon  which  the  modern  city  of  Marietta  is 
built,  which  once  consisted  of  mounds,  raised  parallel 
ramparts,  and,  most  remarkable  of  all,  several  rectan¬ 
gular  platforms  of  large  size,  which  look  as  if  they  had 
once  been  the  foundations  for  extensive  buildings,  prob¬ 
ably  temples.  These  were  definitely  connected  in  plan 
with  the  ramparts,  roads  and  terraces,  the  whole  cover¬ 
ing  the  surface  of  a  plain  along  the  Muskingum  River, 


76 


MAX'S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


fully  a  mile  in  length.  The  construction  of  the  modern 
buildings  has  destroyed  the  larger  part  of  the  original 
earthworks  and  effectively  concealed  the  original  plan, 
but  one  of  the  best  of  the  rectangular  platforms  has  been 
retained  by  erecting  upon  it  the  new  library  building. 


Fig.  18. — View  of  Marietta,  Ohio,  at  the  time  o  settlement  in  1780.  A  hasty 
sketch  taken  from  an  old  painting  preserved  in  the  Historical  Society  Collec¬ 
tion  of  Marietta  College.  Squier  and  Davis  present  a  lithograph  of  virtual'v 
the  same  picture  opposite  p.  139  of  their  great  work,  “Ancient  Monuments  of 
the  Mississippi  Valley,’’  but  in  this  latter  a  few  unimportant  details,  e.  g., 
the  dead  tree  in  the  foreground,  differ  a  little.  In  the  original  condition 
the  earthworks  included  several  isolated  mounds,  two  large  square  enclosures, 
with  temple  sites,  and  a  “sacra  via,’’  consisting  of  two  long  parallel 
ridges,  defining  a  sunken  way.  The  greater  part  of  this  extensive  system 
coincides  with  the  residence  part  of  the  city  of  Marietta,  and  the  earth¬ 
works  are  nearly  obliterated,  but  the  large  mound  the  farthest  away  from 
the  spectator  in  this  painting  lies  within  the  modern  city  cemetery,  and  is 
provided  with  a  flight  of  steps  and  a  railing  on  the  top.  A  new  city 
library  has  iust  been  erected  on  one  of  the  temple  mounds  within  the  larger 
square. 


19.  Cornfields,  Dewponds  and  Cattle-ways. — Not  only 
are  subterraneous  disturbances  of  the  soil  frequently 
recorded  and  the  records  preserved  with  great  fidelity, 
but  changes  made  on  the  surface  by  human  activity  may 
be  equally  permanent,  provided  that  in  the  meantime 


MATERIAL  AND  METHODS 


77 


nothing  occurs  to  destroy  the  record.  The  blowing  of  a 
wind  across  an  exposed  plain  of  sand  may  obliterate  the 
footprints  of  a  passer-by  in  an  hour’s  time,  but  similar 
footprints,  left  on  the  floor  of  a  chamber  in  a  cave  by 
the  one  who  pushed  into  place  the  boulder  that  sealed  it, 
may  remain  distinct  for  a  hundred  thousand  years.  The 
lava  from  Vesuvius,  flowing  over  the  surface  of  the  gar¬ 
dens  of  the  Pompeian  villas,  has  preserved  not  only  the 
flower-pots  which  once  held  flowers,  but  the  roots  and 
stalks  of  the  flowers  themselves,  so  that  now,  after  nine¬ 
teen  centuries,  the  plants  may  be  replaced  in  a  restored 
garden,  kind  for  kind. 

While  the  above  illustrations  of  the  persistence  of 
surface  activities  are  admittedly  unusual  ones,  dealing 
with  extreme  cases,  the  preserving  power  of  a  carpet  of 
turf  spread  over  an  exposed  surface  is  also  very  great, 
and  the  slight  sculpturing  of  the  surface  in  cultivating 
the  soil,  or  even  that  produced  by  the  wearing  of  paths, 
or  the  construction  of  simple  roads,  when  once  covered 
with  verdure,  and  thus  protected  from  winds  and  rains, 
is  likely  to  remain  for  centuries  in  about  its  original 
condition. 

As  an  illustration  of  this  may  be  taken  the  fields  used 
by  the  American  Indians  for  the  cultivation  of  maize 
before  the  advent  of  the  Europeans  with  their  plow¬ 
shares.  Such  fields  are  found  still,  even  in  the  more  cul¬ 
tivated  parts  of  New  England,  where  for  one  cause  or 
another  the  original  surface  has  been  left  for  the  few 
hundreds  of  years  that  separate  us  from  the  aborigines, 
and  here  the  remains  are  frequently  in  so  permanent  a 
condition  that  the  lapse  of  as  many  thousands  of  years 
as  it  now  is  hundreds  would  leave  the  surface  unchanged. 


Fig.  19. — Remaps  of  an  aboriginal  cornfield  in  Northampton,  Mass.  The 
mounds  are  made  separately,  placed  in  rows  in  one  direction  but  not  in 
the  other,  and  evidently  were  made  to  last  frcm  year  to  year,  cultivation 
being  started  each  spring  in  each  mound.  There  was  no  plowing,  or  any 
process  that  resembled  it.  In  the  deed  of  May,  1664,  between  the  Indians 
and  John  Pynchon,  et  al.,  by  which  the  adjacent  village  and  the  surround¬ 
ing  country  were  sold  to  the  Englishmen,  it  was  expressly  st!pulated  that 
the  Indians  should  remove  at  once  to  the  other  side  of  the  Connecticut,  where 
the  Eng’ish  should  plow  up  for  them  sixteen  acres  of  land  for  corn  planting, 
but  that  for  the  present  summer  (1664)  the  Indians  should  keep  their  own 
cornfield,  as  it  was  then  already  planted.  This  gives  the  exact  date  for  the 
last  cultivation  of  this  field. 


MATERIAL  AND  METHODS 


79 


In  these  aboriginal  cornfields  which  antedate  the  use 
of  the  plow,  the  unit  of  structure  is  the  single  hill,  each 
of  which  is  erected  by  hand  for  the  nurture  of  the  single 
plant,  or  plant  association,  and  which  remain  year  after 
year  in  the  same  place.  According  to  the  descriptions 
of  the  first  European  settlers,  the  surface  of  each  hill 
was  softened  up  in  the  early  spring,  and  there  were 
placed  in  it  two  or  three  kernels  of  “corn”  (maize),  a 
bean  or  two,  or  occasionally  a  squash  or  pumpkin  seed, 
and  a  fish  for  fertilization.  Otherwise,  between  the  sep¬ 
arate  hills,  nothing  seems  to  have  been  done,  and  the 
natural  turf  was  allowed  to  grow  unmolested.  The  hills 
were  located  in  rows,  sometimes  in  one  direction  only, 
sometimes  opposite  the  hills  of  the  next  row,  arranged 
like  the  squares  of  a  checkerboard.  The  quincunx  ar¬ 
rangement,  where  the  hills  of  one  row  come  opposite 
the  intervals  of  the  next,  is  seldom  met  with,  and  on 
the  other  hand,  a  completely  irregular  arrangement, 
without  rows  in  either  direction,  is  rather  common.  Of 
any  attempt  at  plowing  an  entire  large  surface,  and  the 
subsequent  geometrical  arrangement  of  the  hills  over 
a  fallow  area,  there  is  not  the  slightest  indication.  Judg¬ 
ing  from  the  settlers’  accounts  of  the  first  development 
of  a  tillage  area  from  the  forest,  the  trees  were  labor¬ 
iously  felled,  and  the  separate  hills  established  wher¬ 
ever  possible  between  the  stumps,  leading  to  the  irreg¬ 
ular  arrangement  still  often  met  with,  and  evidently  in¬ 
dicative  of  a  fairly  new  field.  After  the  decay  of  the 
stumps  there  seems  to  have  been  a  natural  tendency  to 
get  the  hills  into  definite  rows,  and  fields  with  this  ar¬ 
rangement  probably  represent  a  late  stage  in  the  recla¬ 
mation  of  a  tillage  area.  Presumbly,  in  reshaping  the 


80 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


hills  from  year  to  year  there  was  a  tendency  to  bring  up 
more  soil,  and  the  hills  in  this  way  eventually  formed 
structures  sometimes  two  feet  in  height,  and  large 
enough  at  the  base  to  become  confluent. 

In  association  with  the  remains  of  scharrachs,  forts, 
and  other  signs  of  the  permanent  occupancy  of  a  region 
for  a  long  time,  not  only  the  sites  of  fields  and  gardens 
are  frequently  to  be  met  with,  but  there  may  be  other 
surface  indications,  such  as  old  roads  or  streets,  paths 
for  men,  cattle  tracks  devised  by  domestic  animals,  and 
so  on,  remaining  for  a  vast  number  of  centuries.  Thus 
in  the  downs  of  southern  England,  in  association  with 
the  rings  and  ramparts,  are  still  to  be  traced  many  such 
surface  modifications  dating  from  the  Bronze  Age,  or 
even  the  Neolithic.  Among  these  are  small  circular  or 
square  areas  a  little  concave,  evidently  once  “dew 
ponds,”  by  means  of  which  the  inhabitants  of  these 
regions  solved  the  problem  of  the  water  supply  when 
cut  off  from  the  natural  watercourses  lower  down.  Such 
dew  ponds,  which  depend  upon  the  principle  of  collec¬ 
tion  and  storing  the  atmospheric  moisture,  have  been 
used  in  England  up  to  modern  times,  and  men  may  still 
be  found  who  understand  their  construction.1 

20.  Megalithic  Monuments. — In  many  parts  of  the 
world  there  occur  curiously  placed  stones,  generally  of 
huge  dimensions,  and  hence  called  megaliths  (Gk.  iisyag, 
large;  and  XtOoc,  stone)  which  in  their  position  and 
arrangement  show  a  definite  purpose,  and  cannot  be 


1  For  this  topic  cf.  Hubbard,  Neolithic  Dew-Ponds  and  Cattle- 
Ways;  Longmans,  Green  &  Co.,  London,  1916;  also  E.  B.  Dela- 
barre  and  H.  H.  Wilder,  Indian  Corn-IIills  in  Massachusetts, 
Amer.  Anthropol.,  July-Sept.,  1920,  pp.  203-225. 


MATERIAL  AND  METHODS 


SI 


accounted  for  as  the  result  of  glacial  action,  or  of  any 
other  force  save  the  definite  design  of  man.  Such  stones 
occur  in  a  great  variety  of  form  and  arrangement,  and 
everywhere  excite  the  interest,  and  often  the  wonder,  of 
the  inhabitants,  usually  not  unmixed  with  superstition. 

Typical  megaliths  are  rough  and  irregular  of  surface, 
with  no  attempt  at  finish  or  elaboration  of  the  surface, 
nor  do  they  usully  bear  any  carving  or  inscription  of  any 
sort ;  yet,  in  a  way,  the  elaborate  stone  structures  of  the 
early  historic  peoples,  such  as  the  obelisks,  and  perhaps 
the  pyramids  of  Egypt,  and  the  temples  of  Greece,  may 
be  nothing  more  than  the  elaboration  of  these  cruder 
types,  by  which  in  arrangement  and  in  general  form 
they  were  long  anticipated. 

The  simplest  type  of  megalithic  structure  is  the  men¬ 
hir,1  which  consists  of  a  single  large  pillar,  standing  up¬ 
right  in  the  earth,  with  the  base  deep  in  the  ground. 
Menhirs  are  generally  of  large  or  gigantic  propor¬ 
tions,  often  many  times  the  height  of  a  man,  but  are 
proportionately  slender,  and  form  a  sort  of  crude 
obelisk.2 

Menhirs  are  occasionally  met  with  arranged  in  one 
or  more  rows  across  a  level  plain,  and  constitute  what  is 
technically  known  as  an  alignment.  Sometimes,  too,  they 
are  arranged,  not  in  a  straight  row,  or  in  several  paral¬ 
lel  straight  rows,  but  in  a  circle  or  oval,  the  group 

1  Menhir  is  a  Celtic  word,  from  macn,  a  rock,  and  Mr,  high. 

2  The  tallest  menhir  known,  with  a  height  of  twenty  and  a 
half  meters,  is  situated  in  Morbihon,  Brittany,  and  is  locally 
known  as  the  “Men-er-Hroek,”  or  Stone  of  the  Fairies.  The 
others  found  in  the  neighborhood  are  much  smaller,  measuring 
between  seven  and  eleven  meters.  The  finished  obelisks  of 
Egypt  frequently  surpass  even  the  menhir  of  Morbihon,  one  at 
Ivarnak  measuring  over  thirty-three  meters. 


Fig.  20. — Entrance  to  the  village  of  Menac,  at  the  head  of  the  Carnac  Alignment. 
(From  a  photograph  by  Miss  Agnes  Hunt.) 


MATERIAL  AND  METHODS 


S3 


being  then  known  as  a  cromlech  1  or  stone  circle.  Both 
of  these  types  sometimes  occur  as  elements  of  a  vast 
structure  occupying  a  space  many  acres  in  extent,  as 
in  the  great  megalithic  temples  of  Stonehenge  and  Car- 
nac,  described  in  Chapter  III. 

Aside  from  structures  made  with  single  menhirs,  either 
alone  or  grouped  to  form  rows  or  circles,  there  are  two 
distinct  types  of  compound  megalithic  formations  that 
result  from  the  piling  or  arranging  of  several  mega¬ 
liths  into  a  single  structure ;  the  lichaven  or  trilith ,  and 
the  dolmen.2 

The  first  of  these  consist  of  two  upright  menhirs,  set 
near  together,  but  not  in  contact,  with  a  third  one  laid 
horizontally  across  the  upper  ends  of  the  others  in  the 
form  of  an  architrave  or  lintel,  forming  a  great  door  or 
gateway.  Single  triliths  may  occur ;  they  are  also  found 
grouped  to  form  a  cromlech  or  stone  circle,  like  those  of 
Stonehenge. 

The  second  compound  type  of  monolithic  structure, 
the  dolmen,  is  essentially  a  stone  table,  usually  of  huge 
proportions,  in  which  a  fairly  flat  top  or  roof  is  placed 
horizontally  on  the  top  of  three  or  more  uprights.  Dol¬ 
mens  occur  in  the  same  regions  where  other  types  of 
megaliths  are  also  found  and  have  been  interpreted  by 
some,  as  in  the  case  of  triliths  and  other  megalithic 
structures,  as  being  the  cores,  or  internal  skeleton,  of 
structures  once  covered  with  earth,  which  by  erosion  has 
long  since  been  removed. 

Megalithic  structures  of  these  various  types  are  met 
with  in  many  parts  of  the  world,  but  are  especially  fre- 


1  Cromlech ;  from  Celtic,  Tcroumm,  curved,  and  lech ,  a  stone. 

2  Celtic  c lol-mcn ,  from  dol  or  daul,  a  table;  and  maen,  a  rock. 


Pig.  21. — Views  from  Carnac,  Brittany.  From  photographs  by  Miss  C.  J.  Lynch.  (a)  A  small  menhir,  forming 
part  of  an  alignment,  Carnac.  (b)  Among  the  menhirs,  Carnac.  (c)  Dolmen,  or  stone  table,  supported  by  uprights. 
Situated  about  a  mile  from  the  village  of  Carnac. 


MATERIAL  AND  METHODS 


S5 


quent  in  France,  Denmark,  and  the  British  Isles.  In 
France  there  have  been  enumerated  4458  dolmens,  and 
1588  single  menhirs,  or  counting  also  the  menhirs  in 
the  various  alignments  and  cromelchs,  6192. 1  These 
are  especially  abundant  in  Brittany,  the  Department  of 
Morbihon  alone  possessing  3450  menhirs,  more  than  all 
the  rest  of  the  country.  Nearly  all  of  these  are  made 
of  rough  stone,  without  sign  of  carving,  or  more  than  a 
slight  attempt  at  a  careful  shaping,  but  in  a  few  cases 
they  are  fairly  symetrical,  and  occasionally  the  surface 
bears  definite  carvings  (petroglyphs).  Since,  however, 
some  of  these  last  consist  of  Christian  emblems,  e.  g., 
the  twelve  apostles,  the  Virgin,  etc.,  definitely  of  recent 
date,  and  since  the  surfaces  of  these  blocks  offer  tempting 
fields  for  such  work  it  is  never  certain,  even  when  the 
petroglyphs  are  of  undoubted  antiquity,  that  they  were 
made  at  the  time  the  stones  were  set  in  place.  A  strik¬ 
ing  secondary  modification  of  an  ancient  megalithic 
structure  is  that  of  a  dolmen  at  Saint-Germaine-de-Con- 
folens,  Department  Charente,  where  the  four  support¬ 
ing  monoliths  which  chance  to  have  been  set  approxi¬ 
mately  at  the  four  corners  of  a  rectangular  top  piece, 
have  been  carved  into  cylindrical  columns  with  heavy 
capitals,  and  the  whole  dolmen  converted  into  a  small 
chapel. 

Wherever  such  striking  structures  occur,  it  is  only 
natural  for  them  to  excite  wonder  and  speculation,  and 
become  connected  in  the  popular  mind  with  local  folk¬ 
lore  and  tradition.  Thus  they  are  variously  designated 
as  fairy  rocks,  fairy  homes  or  tombs,  devils’  scats  or 

1  Figures  from  various  sources,  collected  and  given  by 
Dechelette,  1008. 


86 


MAN'S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


tables,  tombs  of  the  giants,  of  the  Saracens,  of  the 
English,  of  the  Huns  ;  beds,  chairs  and  other  domestic 
furniture  of  Arthur,  of  Roland,  of  Gargentua,  and  so 
on.  The  dolmens  especially  suggest  tombs,  and  are 
often  associated  with  a  long  covered  gallery  leading 
to  the  interior.  Precisely  similar  stone  structures,  form¬ 
ing  a  genuine  tomb-chamber  and  the  passageway  lead¬ 
ing  to  it,  have  been  found  as  the  substructure  or  core 
of  an  artificial  mound,  a  circumstance  which  suggests 
strongly  that  the  typical  dolmens,  now  standing  in  the 
open,  were  once  the  cores  of  similar  mounds,  subse¬ 
quently  removed  through  the  long  continued  action  of 
the  elements,  leaving  the  stone  structures  entirely  un¬ 
covered. 

On  the  other  hand,  solitary  menhirs  seem  to  show  no 
funereal  connection,  but  perhaps  may  have  been  me¬ 
morial  stones,  marking  the  site  where  great  events  took 
place,  or  were  somewhat  more  likely  objects  of  venera¬ 
tion,  in  which  the  vivid  imagination  of  prehistoric  man 
could  see  the  form  of  the  divinity  which  his  fingers  were 
as  yet  too  untrained  to  attempt  to  carve. 

That  the  impression  produced  upon  the  untaught  by 
such  huge  stone  structures  is  one  of  veneration,  if  not 
actual  worship,  is  shown  by  the  attitude  towards  them 
taken  by  the  modern  population.  After  the  spread  of 
Christianity  over  Europe,  with  its  iconoclastic  tendency 
towards  sacred  trees,  and  all  objects  associated  with  the 
worship  of  the  northern  religion,  menhirs  and  dolmens 
were  frequently  overthrown,  or  were  else  “Christian¬ 
ized,  ’  ’  that  is,  covered  with  engraved  Christian  emblems, 
surmounted  by  a  cross,  and  used  as  wayside  shrines. 
This  was  plainly  the  motive  in  the  case  of  the  carved 


MATERIAL  AND  METHODS 


87 


dolmen,  above  mentioned,  with  its  sculptured  col¬ 
umns.1 

21.  Graves  and  Burial  Places. — Among  the  most  val¬ 
uable  of  all  prehistoric  remains  are  places  of  burial,  for 
here  are  found,  not  only  the  bones  of  the  ancient  peoples, 
with  all  the  possibilities  arising  from  careful  anthropo¬ 
metric  studies,  but  frequently  also  numerous  associated 
objects,  placed  with  and  about  the  dead  for  ceremonial 
reasons,  and,  aside  from  their  intrinsic  interest,  reveal¬ 
ing  much  concerning  early  philosophy.  Among  primi¬ 
tive  people  the  cult  of  the  dead  often  assumes  exagger¬ 
ated  proportions,  especially  among  those  that  have  be¬ 
come  sufficiently  civilized  to  allow  the  construction  of 
elaborate  tombs  and  burial  vaults,  while  at  the  same 
time  they  lack  a  sufficient  breadth  of  knowledge  to  place 
them  in  a  true  relation  to  the  larger  world.  Thus,  in 
the  ancient  Egyptian  civilization,  a  necropolis ,  or  city 
of  the  dead,  always  accompanied  each  city  of  the  living, 
and  occupied  a  large  share  of  the  attention  of  the  people. 
Here,  and  elsewhere,  the  tomb  is  the  dwelling-place  of 
the  occupants,  and  not  only  may  resemble  in  architec¬ 
ture  the  homes  of  the  living  inhabitants,  but  is  furnished 
with  the  implements  and  utensils  that  would  be  needed 
if  the  occupants  were  still  alive.  This  principle  is 
sometimes  carried  to  such  an  extent  that  the  favorite 
domestic  animals  are  buried  with  the  departed  chieftain, 


XW.  C.  Borlase,  in  his  “The  Dolmens  of  Ireland,”  3  vols,  1897, 
has  given  an  exhaustive  review  of  these  structures  in  that 
country.  The  monolithic  structures  of  all  sorts,  found  in  Brit¬ 
tany,  are  pleasantly  described  by  A.  S.  Packard,  in  the  Ameri¬ 
can  Naturalist  for  1891  (pp  870-890).  In  the  Scientific  Ameri¬ 
can  Supplement  for  Oct.  8,  1909,  are  given  suggestions  con¬ 
cerning  the  methods  employed  in  transporting  and  setting  up 
the  huge  monoliths. 


ss 


MAN'S  PREHISTORIC  TAST 


either  killed  at  the  grave  or  entombed  alive,  and  this 
custom  may  be  continued  so  as  to  include  the  servants, 
and  even  the  wives.  Practically  all  of  these  customs  are 
still  extant  among  various  primitive  living  peoples,  and 
repay  the  most  careful  study,  since  through  these  the 
psychological  meaning  of  the  details  obtained  by  exca¬ 
vation  often  becomes  apparent. 

While  in  many  situations  and  in  certain  soils  human 
bones  are  not  very  durable,  and  soon  vanish  completely, 
in  other  cases,  where  the  conditions  are  different,  they 
may  last  indefinitely,  and  although  they  become  ex- 
tremely  fragile,  still  often  preserve  their  exact  form,  and 
through  the  proper  means  may  be  removed  and  hard¬ 
ened. 

The  simplest  form  of  burial  is  that  in  which  the  body 
is  laid  in  a  slight  excavation  in  direct  contact  with  the 
earth,  without  coffin  or  external  protection  of  any  kind 
save,  perhaps,  a  cloth  or  hide,  or  something  of  an  equally 
perishable  nature.  Even  in  such  cases,  under  the  right 
conditions,  the  bones  may  last  for  thousands  of  years. 
Thus  the  plains  of  the  Rhine  valley  are  in  places  thickly 
.strewn  with  graves  of  the  Neolithic  period,  dating  per¬ 
haps  from  six  to  ten  thousand  years  before  the  Chris¬ 
tian  era,  and  vet  in  many  cases  the  skeletons  are  still 
partly  preserved  and  capable  of  excavation.  With  these 
are  usually  found  various  sorts  of  stone  implements  and 
pieces  of  pottery,  indicative  of  the  period  to  which  they 
belong.  Skeletons  of  the  Bronze  Age  also  frequently 
occur,  quite  similar  in  appearance  to  the  first,  but  defi¬ 
nitely  differentiated  from  them  by  the  presence  of  nu¬ 
merous  implements  of  bronze,  perhaps  a  sword  and  a 
buckle  for  the  sword  belt  in  the  case  of  a  man,  and  a 


MATERIAL  AND  METHODS 


S9 


comb,  a  long  hair  needle,  and  a  brooch  in  the  case  of  a 
woman. 

The  proper  excavation  of  such  a  grave  not  only  re¬ 
quires  considerable  technical  knowledge  in  order  to  real¬ 
ize  all  the  possibilities  of  the  find,  but  all  the  surround¬ 
ing  circumstances,  such  as  the  surface  geology,  the  con¬ 
dition  of  the  soil,  and  the  arrangement  of  its  layers  should 
be  carefully  noted.  When  possible,  a  trained  archeolo¬ 
gist  should  be  called  at  the  very  beginning  of  the  work, 
or  when  there  is  no  such  specialist  available,  the  exca¬ 
vation  should  be  done  only  in  the  presence  of  the  most 
scientific  men  obtainable,  who  should  note  the  details 
with  care.  Thus,  with  respect  to  the  position  of  the  body, 
one  should  find  one  of  the  following  conditions, 

1.  Placed  horizontally,  usually  upon  the  back.  The 
arms  may  be  (a)  put  upon  the  chest,  (b)  laid  along  the 
sides,  and  so  on.  This  is  the  usual  position  of  burial  in  a 
coffin,  or  when  the  body  is  placed  in  a  stone  cist  or  sar¬ 
cophagus. 

2.  Folded  up,  with  the  knees  to  the  chin,  and  placed 
(a)  on  the  side,  (b)  on  the  back,  (c)  on  the  face. 

3.  True  “sitting  position,  ’ ’  with  the  head  uppermost.1 

4.  Thrust  into  a  pit  without  system,  the  limbs  bent 
or  folded  haphazard. 

Many  archeologists  have  sought  for  some  definite  sym¬ 
bolic  meaning  in  the  various  attitudes  in  which  bodies 

1  The  so-eallecl  “sitting  position,”  in  which  aboriginal  skele¬ 
tons  are  almost  always  reported  to  have  been  found,  is  usually 
a  journalistic  phrase,  and  signifies  any  folded  position,  that  is, 
anything  except  the  usual  civilized  one,  with  the  body  “laid 
out”  straight  and  on  the  back  or  side.  The  actual  sitting 
position,  with  the  vertebral  column  upright,  the  hip-bones  below, 
and  the  skull  above,  is  of  rare  occurrence,  and  when  found  is 
generally  in  association  with  a  mound  or  tomb  of  some  sort. 
In  certain  parts  of  the  earth,  however,  as  in  Peru,  and  in  some 
localities  of  our  own  Southwest  the  true  sitting  position  is 
usual. 


Fig.  22a. — Skeleton  of  an  old  Indian  man  found  in  North  Hadley, 
Mass.,  shown  exactly  as  in  the  grave.  Note  the  fo'.ded  position, 
suggesting  the  binding  of  the  body  when  fresh.  The  photograph 
was  taken  from  a  camera  elevated  above  the  body  and  looking 
straight  down  upon  it.  The  skeleton  is  therefore  not  in  a  sit¬ 
ting  position,  but  folded  up,  and  lying  upon  the  right  side.  Now 
in  the  Museum  at  Smith  College.  Prepared  by  the  author. 


Fig.  22b. — Skeleton  of  an  Indian  man  found  at  Cheapside,  near  Green¬ 
field,  Mass.  Manner  of  photographing,  position,  etc.,  the  same  as 
in  Fig.  22a.  Now  in  the  Gilbert  Museum  at  Amherst  College. 
Prepared  by  Ralph  W.  Whipple. 


02 


MAX'S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


are  buried,  and  occasionally  this  belief  is  justified.  In 
many  cases  a  folded  body  was  probably  tied  in  this  posi¬ 
tion  with  the  avowed  intention  of  preventing  either  later 
visitations  from  the  man  himself,  or  the  use  of  the  body 
by  an  evil  spirit,  who  might  possess  himself  of  it  to  do 
harm  to  the  living.  Sometimes  the  face  will  be  found 
turned  to  a  definite  point  of  the  compass,  frequently  the 
East,  which  may  very  likely  have  had  a  religious  sig¬ 
nificance,  connected  with  some  form  of  bodily  resurrec¬ 
tion.  Again,  the  utilitarian  purpose  of  folding,  or  even 
tying  the  body  in  order  to  make  the  interment  easier, 
was  undoubtedly  a  frequent  motive,  especially  among 
a  primitive  race,  poorly  equipped  with  tools  for  dig¬ 
ging. 

A  curious  theory,  now  known  to  have  been  due  to  a 
misunderstanding  of  a  modern  writer,  is  that  the  folded 
body,  the  H ocher stellung  of  the  German  archeologists, 
represented  the  child  in  the  womb,  and  that  this  posi¬ 
tion  was  symbolic  of  a  new  birth  from  the  Earth-Mother. 
The  study  of  the  ideas  and  customs  of  modern  peoples 
still  in  primitive  condition,  gives  much  support  to  all  of 
the  above  theories  save  the  last,  but  shows  absolutely  no 
evidence  of  this  particular  symbolism.1 

It  is  always  of  interest  to  note  the  exact  relationship 
of  each  skeleton  to  the  points  of  compass,  both  the  di¬ 
rection  of  the  vertebral  column,  that  is,  of  the  body  as 
a  whole,  and  that  to  which  the  face  is  directed,  also  in 
each  case  the  sex,  so  far  as  determinable  from  the  bones 
or  the  associated  artifacts.  It  is  true  that  here  the  similar 

1  For  positions  in  burial  and  their  significance,  in  the  light 
of  the  study  of  living  races,  see  R.  Andree,  in  “Archiv  fiir 
Anthropologie,”  1007. 


MATERIAL  AND  METHODS 


93 


direction  of  a  series  of  skeletons  may  have  been  dne 
merely  to  convenience  or  custom,  as  in  old  New  England 
“burying  grounds”  of  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth 
centuries,  but  it  is  precisely  in  such  points  that  primi¬ 
tive  ritual  is  likely  to  show  itself,  and  in  a  given  case 
the  absence  of  definite  plan  is  as  important  to  establish 
as  the  reverse.1 

The  treatment  of  the  bones,  both  during  and  after 
excavation,  depends  so  largely  upon  the  conditions  that 
no  general  rules  can  be  followed.  In  most  cases  the  bones 
when  first  exposed  are  soft  and  easily  crumble  to  pieces, 
but  if  they  are  carefully  exposed  for  a  few  hours  and 
allowed  to  dry  out  before  removal  they  will  become  much 
firmer.  In  no  case  should  a  shovel  or  other  large  tool 
be  employed  in  the  final  excavation,  but  the  earth  should 
be  carefully  removed  by  some  small  implement  like  a  flat 
stick  or  knife,  or,  best  of  all,  mainly  by  the  fingers.  A 
brush,  like  a  clothes-brush  (whisk-broom),  is  also  often 
useful,  and  much  of  the  earth  can  be  safely  brushed 
away.  In  cases  where  the  bones  are  too  fragile  for  the 
above  treatment,  certain  special  methods  may  be  used, 
such  as  impregnating  the  soil,  bones  and  all,  in  a  glue 
solution,  shellac,  or  water  glass,  thus  making  a  fossil  of 


1  The  custom  of  burying  bodies  in  rows,  with  or  without 
mounds  to  mark  the  single  graves,  is  so  universal  in  Christian 
countries  that  one  takes  for  granted  that  it  is;  always  the 
custom  everywhere.  This  is,  however,  no  more  natural  than 
any  other  arrangement,  and  like  other  methods  sometimes 
appears  as  a  distinct  tribal  custom.  Thus  it  occurred  among 
certain  prehistoric  peoples  of  northern  Germany,  whose  burial 
places  on  this  account  are  termed  by  modern  archeologists  the 
Reihengr ciber,  and  it  is  a  possible  hypothesis  that  this  common 
custom  of  modern  times  among  European  peoples  may  be  traced 
back  to  these  people,  either  as  a  direct  inheritance  or  as  the 
perpetuation  of  an  idea. 


94 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


the  whole  mass,  which  may  then  be  removed  in  a  single 
piece. 

If  the  bones  lie  in  moist  sand,  they  may  be  uncovered 
only  enough  to  locate  them ;  the  sand  may  then  be  re¬ 
placed  over  them  and  the  whole  grave  may  be  isolated 
from  the  surroundings  by  digging  deep  trenches  entirely 
around  the  body,  and  in  this  condition  a  box  may  be 
built  about  the  whole  thing.  When  a  bottom  lias  been 
driven  through  beneath  by  pushing  boards  through,  one 
at  a  time,  the  box  may  be  screwed  up  and  transported 
to  the  museum  or  laboratory  where  the  investigator 
wishes  to  continue  to  work.  Under  such  favorable  con¬ 
ditions  the  actual  excavation  may  be  carried  on,  and 
the  most  fragile  bone,  or  even  a  trace  of  one,  may  be 
hardened  and  fixed  by  any  desired  method. 

By  this  method  an  interment  may  be  preserved  in 
exactly  the  same  condition  that  it  was  in  the  earth  when 
found  by  the  investigator,  and  at  times  such  details  as 
the  settling  of  parts  of  the  body  shortly  after  death 
through  decay,  displacements  by  the  action  of  worms, 
moles,  or  burrowing  insects,  and  so  on,  may  oe  vividly 
shown.1 

A  series  of  skeletons  of  Oscans,  discovered  a  few  years 
ago  in  Pompeii,  beneath  the  ruins  of  the  Roman  city, 
and  antedating  them  by  many  hundreds  of  years,  have 
been  left  in  place,  with  glass  cases  built  over  them,  and 
the  whole  collection,  of  some  dozen  separate  graves,  en¬ 
closed  within  a  building  erected  for  that  purpose.  In 


1  For  detaails  of  the  method  of  excavating  fragile  skeletons, 
especially  the  removal  of  the  entire  grave,  and  the  subsequent 
excavations  in  the  museum,  see  H.  H.  Wilder  and  R.  W.  Whip¬ 
ple,  in  American  Anthropologist,  July-Sept.,  1917,  pp.  372-387. 


MATERIAL  AND  METHODS 


95 


this  case  a  museum  was  built  over  a  set  of  graves,  since 
they  happened  to  be  found  in  a  place  constantly  visited 
by  sightseers;  otherwise  some  method  might  be  devised 
for  transporting  a  grave,  earth  and  all,  to  a  museum.1 

22.  Mounds  and  Tumuli. — A  common  artificial  earthen 
structure,  found  in  almost  all  parts  of  the  world,  is  the 
mound,  typically  conical  and  symmetrical  in  shape,  and 
varying  in  size  from  that  of  a  corn  hill  to  that  of  a 
pretentious  structure,  sightly  in  appearance  and  capable 
of  being  used  as  a  lookout  or  observation  post.  Mounds, 
like  ramparts,  are  occasionally  erected  as  part  of  some 
elaborate  system  of  defense,  and  have  been  already  men- 
tiond  under  the  heading  of  scharrachs,  but  the  common 
purpose  of  a  mound  is  funereal,  and  used  as  a  final 
abode  for  the  dead.  To  distinguish  such  a  mound  from 
other  types,  it  may  be  known  as  a  tumulus  or  grave- 
mound. 

The  present  practice  of  the  disposal  of  the  dead  in 
China  well  illustrates  the  formation  of  grave-mounds. 
Here  there  are  no  burials,  in  the  sense  of  actual  inter¬ 
ments,  but  the  coffins,  often  large  and  elaborate,  are 
set  about  anywhere  in  the  fields,  often  along  the  base  of 
the  city  walls,  and  a  temporary  roof  of  sods  or  tiles  is 
placed  upon  it  for  its  protection.  After  some  time, 
months  or  even  years,  more  sods  or  earth  are  heaped 

1  There  may  here  be  emphasized,  not  only  the  advice  given 
above,  that  of  securing  the  best  specialist  obtainable,  in  the 
event  of  the  discovery  of  ancient  human  bones,  but  also  the 
importance  of  eventually  placing  such  remains,  correctly  labeled 
as  to  locality,  in  the  nearest  public  museum,  where  they  may 
be  permanently  kept.  In  private  possession  such  objects  are 
easily  injured,  the  labels  are  misplaced,  and  eventually  the 
total  destruction  or  loss  of  identity  of  the  entire  specimen  is 
inevitable. 


96 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


up  over  the  original  coffin,  or  over  coffin  and  its  tem¬ 
porary  shelter,  and  eventually  the  original  nucleus 
disappears  beneath  a  pretentious  and  symmetrical 
tumulus. 

The  study  of  these  present-day  Chinese  mounds  pre¬ 
pares  us  to  expect  elsewhere  as  a  nucleus  human  re¬ 
mains,  enclosed  in  some  form  of  shelter,  and,  as  a  mat¬ 
ter  of  fact,  such  is  very  frequently  the  case.  There  are 
also,  especially  in  regions  where  cremation  has  been 
practiced,  plenty  of  mounds  where  actual  bones  are  re¬ 
placed  by  charred  remains,  or  simply  ashes,  and  in  such 
cases  there  are  likely  to  be  found,  associated  with  the 
ashes,  numerous  implements,  presumably  the  possessions 
of  the  dead.  During  the  Bronze  Age,  when  incineration 
was  usual,  mounds  of  this  period  have  furnished  some 
of  the  richest  finds  of  such  materials.  Occasionally,  too, 
deposits  of  implements  are  often  found  in  a  mound, 
without  the  expected  ashes,  and  it  may  be  supposed 
that  for  some  reason,  either  as  a  cache,  or  a  sacrifice, 
or  as  a  commemoration,  the  constructors  of  the  mound 
intended  it  primarily  to  contain  the  hoard  brought  to 
light  by  modern  excavation.  We  have  in  Beowulf  a 
detailed  account  of  the  building  of  just  such  a  mound, 
the  appearance  and  contents  of  which  closely  correspond 
to  certain  ones  actually  investigated. 

“Then  the  Weder  people  made  a  mound  upon  the  cliff 
— it  was  high  and  broad,  to  be  seen  of  sea-faring  men ; 
and  ten  days  they  built  it,  the  war’s  hero  beacon.  They 
made  a  wall  round  about  the  ashes  of  the  fire,  even  as  the 
wisest  of  men  could  most  worthily  devise  it  there.  With¬ 
in  the  mound  they  put  the  rings  and  the  jewels,  all  the 
adornments  which  the  brave-hearted  men  had  taken  from 
the  hoard ;  they  let  the  earth  hold  the  treasure  of 


MATERIAL  AND  METHODS 


07 


heroes,  put  the  gold  in  the  ground,  where  it  still  re¬ 
mains,  as  useless  unto  men  as  it  was  of  yore.”  1 

Here  also  may  be  considered  the  ancient  Scandinavian 
custom  of  preparing  a  funeral  ship  for  the  reception  of 
a  chief.  A  tomb  chamber  was  erected  on  the  deck,  and 
in  this  were  placed,  not  only  the  body  of  the  deceased 
chieftain,  but  those  of  several  horses  and  dogs,  prob¬ 
ably  those  of  the  animals  of  which  he  was  especially 
fond,  and  which  were  undoubtedly  killed,  in  order  that 
they  might  accompany  their  master.  Finally  the  entire 
ship  was  covered  by  an  earthern  mound  which  preserves 
the  ship,  in  a  fair  condition,  for  future  archeologists. 

Such  a  ship  may  be  seen,  now  placed  within  the 
grounds  of  the  University  of  Christiania,  Norway,  and 
enclosed  within  a  building.  In  this  the  tomb  chamber 
is  still  in  place,  and  the  ship  is  adorned  with  rows  of 
shields,  overlapping  one  another  along  the  sides.  The 
human  bones  found  in  the  tomb  chamber  were  those  of 
a  very  large  man,  and  are  placed,  together  with  those 
of  the  accompanying  animals,  on  tables  near  the  ship. 
The  announcement  has  just  been  made  of  the  discovery, 
by  Prof.  Brogge  of  the  same  University,  of  another  such 
“Viking  ship,”  in  a  still  better  state  of  preservation, 
and  with  the  usual  number  of  dogs  and  horses,  but  the 
human  skeleton  within  the  tomb  chamber  is  that  of  a 
woman,  a  “queen,”  instead  of  the  usual  “king.” 

Aside  from  all  mounds  of  human  construction,  de¬ 
fensive,  funereal,  or  commemorative,  there  are  several 
natural  agencies  which  are  capable  for  producing  well- 
formed  mounds.  These  are  liable  to  excite  the  interest 
of  people,  and  the  archeologist  would  do  well  to  familiar- 


1  “Beowulf,”  XLTII.  Tinker’s  translation,  1910,  p.  141. 


08 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


ize  himself  with  them  and  their  characteristics.  The 
drumlin  is  a  geological  formation  produced  by  the  action 
of  the  glaciers.  It  occurs  commonly  in  association  with 
other  glacial  phenomena,  such  as  gravel  hills,  and  gravel 
embankments,  and  any  mound  that  is  found  in  such  com¬ 
pany  should  be  treated  with  some  suspicion.  Another 
sort  of  mound  may  he  the  result  of  the  fall  and  conse¬ 
quent  uprooting  of  a  large  tree  in  early  times.  The 
earth  over  a  considerable  area  is  brought  up  on  the 
roots,  and,  after  the  final  decay  of  the  woody  structure, 
assumes  an  oval  shape,  rather  symmetrical  in  outline. 
This  sort  of  mound  is  usually  accompanied  by  a  corre¬ 
sponding  depression  on  the  side  from  which  the  wind 
came  that  originally  uprooted  the  tree.  Ant-hills  are 
responsible  for  certain  small  mounds,  hut,  aside  from 
the  tropics,  no  very  considerable  mounds  ever  come  from 
this  source. 

23.  Cists ,  Tombs  and  Sepulchral  Chambers. — One  of 
the  beliefs  deeply  imbedded  in  primitive  folklore  is  that 
the  body  laid  away  is  in  a  sort  of  sleep,  and  that  it  still 
requires  a  house  as  much  as,  or  even  more  than,  when  it 
was  alive.  There  thus  arises  the  idea  of  the  vault  or 
tomb,  either  for  a  single  individual  or  for  a  family  or 
other  association  of  individuals,  and  there  is  often,  as 
would  be  expected,  a  definite  similarity  in  architecture 
between  the  more  elaborate  tombs  and  the  houses  of  the 
living. 

One  of  the  simplest  types  of  receptacle  for  a  dead 
body  is  the  cist  or  stone  coffin,  which  consists  of  four 
sides,  forming  an  oval  or  rectangle,  with  flag-stones  for 
the  floor,  and  either  a  single  large  slab,  or  several  smaller 
ones,  for  the  roof  or  cover.  These  are  usually  designed 


MATERIAL  AND  METHODS 


99 


for  the  reception  of  a  single  body,  and  are  often  so 
small  as  to  necessitate  the  folding  of  this  one  into  a 
compact  parcel.  Occasionally  a  cist  is  of  large  dimen¬ 
sions  and  designed  for  several  bodies. 

Cists  in  their  typical  form  are  frequent  in  many  parts 
of  Europe,  many  often  occurring  in  association,  making 
a  localized  necropolis  or  cemetery.  Thus  in  the  Breton 
island  of  Thinac,  within  a  space  of  one  hundred  and 
sixty  meters,  no  less  than  twenty-seven  stone  cists  were 
unearthed,  some  of  which  contained  single  skeletons, 
others  two,  three,  or  even  four.  With  these  were  associated 
implements  of  polished  stone  and  a  little  pottery,  mark¬ 
ing  the  burial  as  Neolithic. 

An  earlier  stage  of  the  idea  that  developed  into  the 
cist  is  seen  in  the  ring  or  oval  found  occasionally  in 
Indian  mounds  in  the  United  States,  where  the  body  is 
found  wholly  or  partly  enclosed  by  stones  of  various 
sizes  and  shapes,  placed  horizontally  and  without  either 
floor  or  cover.1  By  selection  of  better  shaped  stones, 
that  is,  flat  slabs  instead  of  boulders,  and  by  fitting 
them  into  box  form,  the  walls  of  a  typical  cist  are  made. 
Beyond  the  simple  cist  comes  the  gallery-grave,  a  more 
complex  stone  structure,  covered  with  earth  heaped  up 
in  the  form  of  a  mound,  designed  for  the  reception  of 
a  large  number  of  bodies,  and  intended  either  for  re¬ 
peated  opening  for  additional  interments,  or  for  a  final 
sealing  up  at  one  time.  Although  there  is  much  indi- 

1  Cf.  for  instance;  Cyrus  Thomas,  “Mound  Exploration,”  12tli 
Ann.  Rep.  Bureau  of  Etlniol.,  Fig.  31  (Wisconsin).  As  an  ex¬ 
ample  of  a  more  finished  Indian  cist,  though  without  cover,  cf. 
the  same,  Fig.  81  (Alexander  C.,  Ill).  Cf.  also,  in  the  same,  an 
account  of  the  late  stone  graves  near  Prairie  du  Rocher,  Ill., 
pp.  136. 


A 


Fig.  23. — A  typical  gallery  grave,  with  a  single  opening.  Precisely  similar  struc¬ 
tures  occur,  formed  of  the  stone  parts  alone,  but  without  a  covering  tumulus 
(a)  View  of  the  entire  mound,  with  the  mouth  of  the  gallery,  leading  into  the 
interior,  (b)  Ground  plan  of  (a),  showing  the  internal  structure;  the  uprights 
are  shaded,  the  flat  st<  nes  that  form  the-  roof  are  given  in  outline. 


MATERIAL  AND  METHODS 


101 


vidual  variation  in  these  structures,  so  that  no  two 
actually  correspond,  they  are  similar  in  general  plan. 

A  gallery-grave  is  essentially  a  large  cist,  forming  a 
room,  or  tomb  chamber,  from  which  extends  a  long, 
low  gallery.  Both  tomb  chamber  and  gallery  are  roofed, 
the  former  with,  perhaps,  a  single  flat  slab,  the  latter 
with  a  succession  of  smaller  ones.  This  entire  structure, 
chamber  and  gallery,  is  buried  beneath  a  mound  of 
earth,  except  perhaps  at  the  mouth,  and  so  shaped  that 
the  tomb  chamber  is  central,  that  is,  placed  beneath  the 
highest  point  of  the  mound.  Thus  completed,  the  entire 
structure  forms  a  tumulus,  with  an  opening  in  the  base 
or  not,  and  with  a  stone  core. 

Gallery  graves  occur,  with  two  parallel  galleries  in¬ 
stead  of  a  single  one,  but  leading  into  a  single  tomb 
chamber;  again,  a  single  mound  may  shelter  a  number 
of  independent  tomb  chambers,  each  with  its  own  gal¬ 
lery.1 

Since,  now,  a  tumulus  consists  simply  of  loose  earth, 
heaped  up  over  a  stone  structure,  it  is  probable  that  in 
some  cases  the  earth  may  eventually  become  eroded  and 
washed  entirely  away,  revealing  the  stone  core,  in  its 
original  form.  In  point  of  fact  there  are  found  just 
such  structures,  identical  with  the  stone  core  of  typical 
tumuli,  easily  explained  on  this  basis,  but  otherwise  quite 
problematical.  In  these  the  tomb  chamber  itself,  with 


1  Such  a  double  gallery  grave,  with  the  tumulus  still  intact, 
occurs  at  Mon,  Denmark  (Forrer,  “Urgeschichte  des  Euro- 
paers.”  Taf.  82,  Figs.  3  and  4,  p.  240)  ;  and  a  large  tumulus  at 
Fontenay-le-Marmion.  Depte.  Calvados,  in  the  eastern  part  of 
France  once  sheltered  11-12  independent  gallery  graves,  each 
terminating  in  a  small  circular  chamber  (Dechelette  “Manuel 
d'Archeologie,”  ISOS,  T.  1,  p.  398,  Fig.  141), 


102 


MAN  S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


its  flat  top  and  its  lateral  supports,  often  forms  a  typi¬ 
cal  dolmen,  with  a  passage  (the  gallery)  leading  into  the 
interior,  and  if  we  follow  up  this  idea  to  its  logical  con¬ 
clusion,  it  becomes  conceivable  that  all  dolmens  may  have 
been  originally  the  central  tomb  chambers  of  tumuli,  and 
that,  either  by  the  hand  of  later  man,  or  by  natural  ero¬ 
sion,  the  earth  has  been  removed,  leaving  the  megalithic 
structure  bare. 

In  cases  where  a  dolmen  occurs  alone,  without  an  in¬ 
troductory  passage,  this  latter  may  originally  have  been 
of  wood,  and  hence  perishable,  or  else  the  stones  may 
have  been  subsequently  removed,  or,  finally,  it  may 
never  have  existed,  and  the  chamber  alone  may  have 
been  constructed  and  sealed,  as  was  believed,  perma¬ 
nently,  after  the  reception  of  its  distinguished  dead. 

As  the  menhir,  among  a  people  of  growing  culture, 
becomes  eventually  an  obelisk,  and  as  the  cromlech  be¬ 
comes  the  circular  temple,  with  its  sculptured  columns, 
so,  if  we  accept  the  above  explanation,  does  the  tumulus 
become  the  pyramid,  especially  as  pyramidal,  as  well  as 
conical,  tumuli  are  occasionally  met  with.  In  both 
cases  there  is,  as  the  nucleus  of  the  whole  structure,  the 
sepulchral  chamber,  sometimes  communicating  with  the 
exterior  through  a  stone-lined  passage,  sometimes  per¬ 
manently  sealed,  without  communication  with  the  out¬ 
side.  When  the  tumulus  is  of  earth,  it  is  liable  to  be¬ 
come  removed,  leaving  the  original  stone  structure  in 
the  open  air;  in  the  Egyptian  pyramid  the  tumulus,  as 
well  as  the  core,  is  of  stone  and  mortar,  and  yet  the 
erosion  has  already  begun  in  many  places,  and  has  fre¬ 
quently  converted  the  sides,  originally  made  smooth  by 
mortar,  into  a  series  of  gigantic  steps,  up  which  tourists 


MATERIAL  AND  METHODS 


103 


aiT  now  hauled  by  Arab  guides,  a  feat  never  intended 
by  the  men  under  whom  these  great  structures  were 
originally  constructed. 

Occasionally  in  Europe  a  dolmen  occurs,  surrounded 
by  a  larger  circle  of  stones  of  which  it  is  the  center. 
This  outer  wall  suggests  by  its  proportions  its  former 
use  as  a  low  retaining  wall  around  the  perimeter  of  the 
original  tumulus.  To  those  archeologists  who  prefer  to 
abandon  all  idea  of  a  connection  between  a  tumulus  and 
a  dolmen,  the  outer  circle  marks  a  sacred  precinct  drawn 
around  a  tomb,  presumably  that  of  some  deified  ances¬ 
tor,  and  always,  as  now,  intended  to  stand  in  the  open  air. 
Continuing  this  idea  one  is  led  to  see  in  the  much  more 
pretentious  cromlechs  at  Stonehenge  and  Avebury  larger 
tombs  of  the  same  sort,  differing  mainly  in  the  number 
and  size  of  the  enclosing  circles.  It  is  also  possible,  for 
those  thoroughly  committed  to  the  tumulus  theory,  and 
the  original  covering  up  of  such  stone  structures,  to 
believe  that  even  these  great  structures  were  once  the 
cores  of  gigantic  mounds,  the  washing  away  of  which, 
as  in  the  case  of  the  smaller  tumuli,  has  revealed  the 
great  monoliths  as  at  present.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the 
outermost  circle  at  Avebury  is  still  surrounded  upon  its 
outer  side  by  an  earthen  rampart,  which  is  sometimes 
interpreted  as  the  remnant  of  the  original  tumulus, 
marking  its  periphery.  Yet  the  argument  is  not  a 
strong  one,  and  the  data  are  certainly  too  few  to  allow 
a  definite  assertion  either  way.  The  similarity  in  archi¬ 
tectural  plan  between  these  large  and  complex  temples 
and  a  simple  dolmen,  when  surrounded  by  a  circle  of 
stones  forming  an  enceinte  or  enclosure  is  undeniable, 
but  can  be  explained  by  the  very  probable  assumption 


104 


MAN'S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


that  all  of  these  works  were  done  by  the  same  people, 
or  by  people  in  the  same  stage  of  development.  At 
any  rate  there  seems  to  be  no  necessity  for  believing, 
because  of  a  similarity  in  construction,  either  that  all 
were  meant  to  be  earth-covered,  or  that  all  were  meant 
to  stand  free  in  the  open  air,  but  that  both  types  of 
construction  existed  side  by  side.1 

Dolmens  occur  in  many  parts  of  Europe  and  Asia, 
as  well  as  Northern  Africa,  coinciding  very  well  with 
the  distribution  of  other  megalithic  structures.  In  gen¬ 
eral  “this  territory  commences  in  India,  and  com¬ 
prises  Syria,  the  Caucasus,  the  Crimea,  many  points  of 
the  northern  littoral  of  the  Black  Sea,  Northern  Africa 
(Sudan,  Tripoli,  Tunis,  Algeria  and  Morocco),  Spain, 
Portugal,  France,  the  islands  of  Brittany,  Belgium 
(rarely),  Holland,  North  Germany,  Denmark,  and  the 
southeastern  part  of  Sweden.2 

This  extensive  distribution  puts  an  end  to  the  old  and 
formerly  popular  theory  which  considered  these  struc¬ 
tures  the  work  of  the  Celts,  while  the  close  analogy  that 
often  exists  between  the  tumuli  of  the  Old  and  New 
Worlds,  and  the  study  of  the  associated  objects  in  each 
case,  attaches  them  definitely  to  a  culture  that  was  late 
Neolithic,  or  to  the  early  Bronze  Age  immediately  en¬ 
suing.  As  in  Europe  and  Africa,  the  North  American 

1  Since,  in  the  case  of  a  great  leader  who  becomes  deified  after 
his  death,  his  tomh  eventually  becomes  a  fane  or  temple  where 
his  worship  is  conducted,  the  question  of  what  such  a  structure 
was  when  originally  constructed  becomes  of  no  importance. 
Thus  both  Stonehenge  and  Avebury,  and  other  structures  like 
them,  may  have  been  originally  erected  as  tombs,  the  deification 
of  the  occupants  of  which  had  the  effect  of  converting  them 
into  places  of  special  worship — i.e.,  temples. 

2Dechelette,  loc.  cit.,  p.  412, 


MATERIAL  AND  METHODS 


mounds  are  mainly  funereal,  and  bear  at  their  cores  the 
plentiful  traces  of  early  interments;  often,  indeed,  the 
well-preserved  skeletons  of  the  original  occupants.  In 
all  of  these  structures,  when  sufficiently  obvious  to  at¬ 
tract  attention,  the  archeologist  must  be  continually 
upon  his  guard  against  intrusive  burials,  that  is,  burials 
made  by  a  later  people,  unconnected  with  the  original 
structure.  This  phenomenon  is  commonly  met  with  in 
Indian  mounds,  where  the  artificially  piled-up  earth  of¬ 
fers  better  facilities  for  excavation  than  the  natural 
soil ;  there  may  have  been  also  some  feeling  of  sanctity  or 
veneration  concerning  such  places,  where  there  are  pos¬ 
sibly  traditions  of  actual  heroes  of  the  past,  or  at  least 
the  feeling  that  the  purpose  of  the  mound  is  mortuary. 
Such  intrusive  burials  occur  irregularly  disposed  over  the 
surface,  and  bear  no  relation  to  the  structure  as  a  whole, 
as  is  the  case  with  the  rightful  occupants.  Similar 
intrusive  burials  have  been  observed  in  Europe,  where 
cists  or  coffins  of  the  Bronze  Age,  for  instance,  occur 
within  the  galleries  of  a  Neolithic  people. 

24.  Special  and  Peculiar  Methods  of  Disposal  of  the 
Dead. — To  a  primitive  philosophy  a  dead  body  is  a 
curious  combination  of  something  to  be  cherished  and 
something  to  be  dreaded.  The  processes  of  decay,  ac¬ 
companied  by  the  development  and  transformation  of 
numerous  creatures,  especially  various  kinds  of  dip¬ 
terous  insects,  are  to  primitive  people  wholly  mysterious 
and  inexplicable,  and  furnish  a  basis  for  superstitious 
beliefs.  It  is  probably  on  account  of  this  latter  phenom¬ 
enon  rather  than  from  the  disagreeable  nature  of  the 
processes  of  decay,  to  which  primitive  man  would 
not  be  especially  sensitive,  that  numerous  more  or  less 


106 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


singular  procedures  connected  with  the  disposal  of  the 
body  have  arisen.  Thus  certain  of  the  Prairie  Indians 
declare  that  the  first  people,  finding  that  a  dead  body 
became  filled  with  living  things,  from  which  came  spirits 
that  flew  away  to  the  moon,  and  fearing  that  in  this 
way  the  earth  would  become  depopulated,  wisely  put  a 
stop  to  this  by  inaugurating  the  practice  of  cremation. 

Another  almost  universal  belief  is  in  the  possibility 
of  the  return  of  the  body  with  the  desire  to  do  mischief, 
either  to  avenge  his  death  upon  the  person  or  persons 
who  have  caused  it  by  their  enchantments,  or  to  take 
off  with  him  those  whom  he  has  loved  in  his  former  life. 
Again,  the  fear  may  not  be  of  the  man  himself,  but  of 
a  demon  or  vampire,  which  may  possess  himself  of  the 
body,  having  none  himself,  and  in  this  borrowed  form 
may  creep  back  to  the  village  with  malign  intent.  To 
these  motives  is  undoubtedly  due  the  widespread  prac¬ 
tice  of  tying  or  wrapping  the  body,  with  the  arms  and 
legs  folded  or  bound  securely;  and  some  see  this  idea 
also  in  the  use  of  stone  enclosures  and  even  in  tumuli. 

This  fear  of  the  body  is  combined  with  respect  for 
the  remains  in  the  custom  of  collecting  the  bones,  and 
reburying  them  in  a  special  vault,  cist,  or  urn ;  also  the 
practice  of  the  cinerary  urn,  to  hold  the  ashes  of  the 
deceased  belongs  here.  By  all  these  means  the  body  is 
rendered  innocuous,  while  it  may  still  be  preserved  or 
kept  near  the  former  friends. 

Bones  may  be  obtained  by  exhumation  after  a  suit¬ 
able  period,  or  may  be  directly  prepared,  somewhat  after 
the  methods  of  a  museum  preparator,  by  cutting  off 
the  soft  parts  and  boiling  the  remainder.  Often  the 
skulls  only  are  saved,  and  these  are  sometimes  decorated 


MATERIAL  AND  METHODS 


107 


or  carved,  those  of  friends  through  respect,  those  of  ene¬ 
mies  as  a  sort  of  exultation  over  the  victory.  Often, 
too,  the  bones,  not  merely  of  a  single  individual,  but  of 
an  entire  family  or  small  tribe,  are,  after  suitable  treat¬ 
ment,  either  reinterred,  or  placed  together  in  a  vault, 
cist,  or  other  container,  and  forming  what  is  known  as 
an  ossuary,  that  is,  a  collection  of  bones.  For  the  hold¬ 
ing  of  such  collections,  particularly  the  bones  of  single 
individuals,  large  vessels  of  pottery,  funereal  urns,  are 
frequently  employed,  and  cases  are  occasionally  met  with 
in  which  an  entire  body,  without  previous  dismember¬ 
ment  or  process  of  skeletonizing,  is  placed  in  a  folded 
position  in  a  large  urn,  or  beneath  an  inverted  one,  the 
so-called  urn-burial.  Customs  analogous  to  all  of  these 
still  obtain  in  places  among  cultured  races,  as,  for  ex¬ 
ample,  the  costly  reliquaries  of  gold,  silver  and  jewels 
that  enshrine  the  bones  of  saints,  and  are  stored  in  the 
treasure  chambers  of  great  cathedrals,  or  as  the  cata¬ 
combs  at  Palermo,  which  were  in  actual  operation  until 
about  1890,  and  in  which  are  stored  the  bones  and  dried 
bodies,  not  of  monks  and  priests  alone,  but  of  thousands 
of  the  secular  inhabitants  of  both  sexes  and  all  ages. 

The  natural  tendency  to  dessication  where  the  air  is 
dry  seems  to  have  been  the  suggestion  from  which  have 
been  developed  the  various  methods  employed  in  mummi¬ 
fying  or  embalming  the  dead,  either  entire,  or,  what  is 
more  usual,  after  removal  of  the  viscera  and,  some¬ 
times,  other  soft  parts.  Such  bodies  may  then  be  kept 
in  the  houses  of  the  living,  or  house-like  tombs  may  be 
constructed  for  them,  in  some  cases  forming  an  exten¬ 
sive  city  of  the  dead,  or  necropolis.  This  tendency  to 
segregate  the  dead  is  by  no  means  confined  to  em- 


10S 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


balmed  bodies,  and  arises  from  several  motives.  Where, 
for  example,  a  natural  grotto  or  spacious  artificial  tomb 
is  employed,  the  reason  of  this  segregation  is  obvious; 
in  other  cases  it  may  be  due  to  respect,  as  with  the  Egyp¬ 
tians,  or  to  a  superstitious  dread,  which  is  minimized 
by  placing  the  dead  in  a  place  by  themselves.  In  this 
connection  the  heavy  enclosing  walls  and  iron  fences 
about  the  cemeteries  of  modern  cultured  races  are  sig¬ 
nificant.  Still  another  reason  for  segregation  may  be 
found  in  the  existence  of  places  of  especial  sanctity, 
and  the  desire  of  friends  to  place  the  bodies  there.  This 
tendency  is  seen,  not  only  in  the  crypts  and  vaults  of 
cathedrals  and  abbeys,  and  in  churchyards,  but  in  the 
greet  number  of  stone  tombs  placed  about  such  sites  as 
Stonehenge  and  Avebury,  and  possibly  in  the  many  in¬ 
trusive  burials  in  ancient  tumuli. 

All  of  these  mortuary  customs  are  of  the  greatest 
interest  to  the  prehistorian  in  explaining  the  conditions 
unearthed  by  him,  as  often  a  slight  indication  may  suf¬ 
fice  to  show  some  ancient  custom  and  suggest  the  general 
cultural  development  of  a  people.  Of  all  the  above  cre¬ 
mation  is,  of  course,  the  most  destructive  of  data,  but 
the  existence  of  cremation  among  a  prehistoric  people, 
as  evidenced  by  the  remains  of  calcined  bones,  mixed 
with  ashes,  perahps  placed  in  some  receptable,  is  in  it¬ 
self  an  important  evidence.  Thus,  where  in  Europe 
the  neolithic  inhabitants  buried  their  dead,  surrounded 
by  their  possessions,  the  people  of  the  Bronze  Age  for 
the  most  part  burned  theirs,  thus  suggesting  the  con¬ 
clusion  that  both  the  new  metal  and  the  new  method  of 
disposing  of  the  dead  were  introduced  simultaneously 
by  a  race  of  invaders,  possibly  those  termed  the  Aryans. 


MATERIAL  AND  METHODS 


109 


25.  Town  and  City  Sites. — The  primitive  “city,”  as 
seen  by  the  stories  of  the  founding  of  Rome  and  Car¬ 
thage,  or  by  the  descriptions  of  cities  in  the  Old  Testa¬ 
ment,  was  a  walled  enclosure,  built  wherever  it  was  most 
safe  and  convenient ;  usually  upon  a  hill,  and  necessar¬ 
ily  of  small  proportions.  The  establishment  of  such  a 
city  was  usually  the  work  of  one  man  and  his  family 
and  dependents,  and,  although  often  elaborated  later, 
the  original  structure  was  such  as  could  be  put  up  by 
a  few  hundred,  or  even  a  few  dozens,  of  men  within  a 
comparatively  short  time.  Thus  the  city  of  Romulus 
was  built  upon  but  one  of  the  seven  hills  of  later  Rome, 
the  Palatine,  and  the  early  inhabitants,  living  in  “cir¬ 
cular  or  oval  wattled  huts,”  1  could  look  across  their 
earthen  rampart  and  their  outer  moat  to  similar  cities 
upon  the  neighboring  hills.  The  traveler  who  penetrates 
into  the  interior  of  the  western  Sahara,  south  of  Mo¬ 
rocco,  still  finds  similar  conditions,  with  walled  “cities,” 
the  dimensions  of  which  are  easily  given  in  feet  rather 
than  miles,  and  where  family  feuds  still  flourish,  and 
city  rises  up  against  city,  as  in  the  days  of  the  Jewish 
kings.  At  a  later  day,  when  such  a  city  becomes  larger, 
and  is  enclosed  with  a  pretentious  wall  of  stone  with 
battlements,  the  original  hill-top,  upon  which  always 
stood  the  “palace”  of  the  “king,”  becomes  the  citadel, 
the  spot  of  the  greatest  veneration.  The  original  palace 
becomes  the  temple,  and  the  hill  a  sacred  enclosure. 
Thus  the  Acropolis  of  Athens  was  anciently  the  entire 
city,  not  unlike  many  others  in  the  same  region.  It  was 
especially  favored  by  fortune,  however,  a  larger  city  was 

1  Frothingliam,  “Roman  Cities  in  Italy  and  Dalmatia,”  1910, 
p.  xvi. 


-  —  /  ^ 


Fig.  24. — The  Mycenean  city  of  Tiryns,  restored  in  accordance  with  the  data 
obtained  by  Schliemann.  A  typical  hill-top  city,  at  its  zenith,  but  not  yet  an 
acropolis,  since  there  is  no  surrounding  settlement,  and  since  all  the  inhabit¬ 
ants  dwell  within  the  city  walls.  The  development  of  dwelling  sites  in  the 
plains,  about  the  base  of  the  fortified  hill,  would  convert  the  original  city 
into  the  sacred  enclosure  in  the  heart  of  the  greater  city,  the  center  of  the 
religious  life.  (From  Forrer,  after  Leonhard  and  Schliemann.) 


MATERIAL  AND  METHODS 


111 


built  around  it ;  the  old  palace  of  Erechtheus  became 
the  predecessor  of  the  Erechtheum;  and  the  enclosure, 
now  rendered  sacred  to  its  inhabitants,  rose  with  their 
prosperity  and  became  eventually  covered  with  preten¬ 
tious  temples. 

Such  a  site,  when  either  continuously  or  intermittently 
inhabited,  becomes  in  time  a  rich  archeological  muse  am, 
since  numberless  durable  objects  become  lost  or  thrown 
away,  and  remain  in  the  soil.  After  a  long  period  of 
occupancy,  followed  by  destruction  at  the  hands  of  a 
successful  foe,  the  ruins  of  such  a  city  may  remain  de¬ 
serted  for  hundreds  of  years,  and  become  gradually  cov¬ 
ered  by  dust  or  sand ;  when  next  selected  as  a  city  site, 
perhaps  by  a  tribe  who  knows  nothing  about  the  past 
history  of  the  place,  any  walls  that  are  still  standing 
may  either  be  used  as  a  quarry  out  of  which  to  select 
building  material  for  the  new  ones,  or  they  may  be 
simply  leveled,  and  the  new  city,  naturally  without  cel¬ 
lars,  would  be  built  on  the  top  of  the  old.  In  this  way 
the  site  of  Hissarlik,  the  traditional  site  of  Troy,  was 
occupied  successively,  at  long  intervals,  by  different 
peoples ;  and  Dr.  Schliemann,  running  his  trenches 
through  the  soil,  found,  not  only  one  Troy,  but  seven, 
representing  as  many  distinct  stages  of  culture,  and  all 
prehistoric.  There  was  found  no  trace  of  inscription  of 
any  kind,  and  the  entire  history  of  the  seven  superim¬ 
posed  cities  was  made  out  wholly  upon  the  evidence  of 
their  material  culture,  as  expressed  in  their  utensils, 
their  weapons,  their  pottery,  and  their  house  sites,  with 
some  evidence  of  their  physical  structure,  as  deduced 
from  their  bones. 

Similar  city  sites  occur  in  considerable  abundance  in 


112 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


the  peninsula  of  Greece,  in  Crete,  in  Egypt,  in  Asia 
Minor,  and  Syria,  especially  Mesopotamia,  but  in  many 
cases,  although  the  ruins  often  abound  with  works  of 
considerable  artistic  merit,  there  is  no  inscription  to 
tell  us  even  the  name  of  the  city  or  of  the  people  who 
inhabited  it,  or  to  bear  witness  to  the  use  or  knowledge 
cf  writing  in  any  form.  Egypt,  however,  developed  very 
early  a  system  of  hieroglyphics,  by  means  of  which  the 
successive  dynasties  may  be  arranged  in  chronological 
order ;  in  Mesopotamia  the  cuneiform  developed  from  an 
older  picture  writing,  and  thus  preserves  to  our  time 
upon  practically  imperishable  tablets  and  cylinders  of 
clay  the  names  of  peoples  and  kings  of  otherwise  for¬ 
gotten  millenia ;  and  a  form  of  inscription  is  found  in 
Crete,  although  as  yet  unread.  Yet  for  a  single  city 
site  linked  to  history  by  decipherable  inscriptions  there 
are  dozens  of  others  without  such  records,  where  the 
only  clues  to  chronology  and  racial  affinities  appear  in 
the  artifacts  and  graves. 

The  most  important  city  sites  are  confined  to  the 
warmer  regions  of  the  globe,  especially  the  warm  tem¬ 
perate  and  sub-tropical  climes,  where  otherwise  the  con¬ 
ditions  are  the  best  for  an  early  development  of  civili¬ 
zation,  and  within  those  regions  all  the  continents  are 
well  represented.  While  in  the  Old  World  many  of  these 
sites  bear  some  probable  relation  to  known  history,  or  at 
least  to  tradition,  the  similar  remains  in  the  New  World 
are  without  such  connection,  and  their  origin  and  chrono¬ 
logy  must  rest  upon  deduction.  The  chief  sites  of  early 
American  civilizations  are  collected  about  three  geo¬ 
graphical  centers,  Mexico,  Yucatan  and  the  highlands 
of  Peru,  and  represent  the  highest  point  attained  by  the 


MATERIAL  AND  METHODS 


113 


American  race.  These  civilizations  seem  in  some  cases 
to  have  been  active  and  flourishing  at  the  time  of  the 
early  Spanish  conquistador es,  like  Cortez,  Pizarro  and 
Balboa;  but  these  men  were  unfortunately  adventurers 
without  scientific  interests,  and  ruthlessly  destroyed  the 
cities  and  slew  the  inhabitants.  The  famous  “gold  of 
the  Incas,”  found  in  considerable  profusion,  not  in 
Peru  only,  but  in  many  other  places  as  well,  was  taken 
across  the  Atlantic  in  Spanish  ships,  and  the  artistic 
and  beautiful  forms  into  which  it  had  been  shaped  by 
the  Americans,  objects  that  would  have  incalculably  en¬ 
riched  the  museums  of  the  world,  were  transferred  into 
coin,  and  played  a  new  and  important  part  in  develop¬ 
ing  the  armies  and  controlling  the  diplomacy  of  Europe. 
Had  these  objects  of  art  been  made  of  a  less  valuable 
material  they  would  probably  have  been  preserved,  and 
would  have  been  of  the  greatest  assistance  in  the  study 
of  the  times  and  the  people  that  produced  them. 

The  plentiful  remains  of  walls  and  temples  have 
proven  more  durable  and  are  found  scattered  all  through 
central  America,  the  beautiful,  profusely  carved  ruins 
overgrown  by  luxuriant  vegetation  and  hidden  in  the 
depths  of  the  tropical  forests.  These  carvings,  and  the 
plentiful  artifacts  found  in  the  sites  are  essentially  sim¬ 
ilar  in  style  to  known  objects  of  modern  Indian  origin, 
and  leave  no  reason  for  the  supposition  that  they  were 
the  work  of  an  unknown  race.  Favored  by  the  climate, 
and  with  the  natural  products  of  the  region,  the  inhabi¬ 
tants  rose  higher  in  the  scale  of  living  than  did  the 
aborigines  in  other  places,  but,  considering  the  relative 
advantages,  and  the  material  furnished  by  their  natural 
surroundings  in  the  two  cases,  the  Iroquois  of  the  north- 


Fig.  25.— The  South  Town  of  the  Tiwa  pueblo  of  Taos;  a  typical  New  Mexican  pueblo,  52  miles  northeast  of  Santa  Fe. 

(After  Winship.) 


MATERIAL  AND  METHODS 


115 


eastern  United  States  compare  very  favorably  with  the 
southern  nations,  and  at  the  time  of  the  discovery,  al¬ 
though  laboring  under  all  the  disadvantages  of  a  harsher 
climate  and  an  unproductive  soil,  had  laid  the  founda¬ 
tion  for  a  state  of  society  which,  but  for  the  invasion 
of  the  whites,  would  have  soon  developed  into  a  com¬ 
paratively  high  state  of  civilization. 

Another  good  example  of  organized  communal  soci¬ 
ety,  combined  with  the  construction  of  a  compact  ‘  ‘  city, 9  9 
in  which  the  separate  dwellings  are  joined  into  one  vast 
edifice,  is  seen  in  the  “pueblos”  of  the  southwestern 
United  States,  a  few  of  which,  like  the  Zuni  and  Hopi, 
are  still  populous,  while  others  have  become  deserted, 
either  since  the  advent  of  the  Spaniards,  or  in  prehis¬ 
toric  times.  Of  the  ruins  some  are  located  in  great 
niches  high  up  on  the  cliffs,  and  form  the  well-known 
“cliff  dwellings.”  All  of  these,  both  modern  and  an¬ 
cient,  possess  a  general  resemblance  to  each  other,  and 
represent  an  entirely  different  solution  of  the  problem 
of  defense  from  that  of  a  town  enclosed  with  walls,  so 
universal  in  the  Old  World.  In  the  true  cliff  dwellers, 
sufficient  protection  was  afforded  by  the  altitude  of  the 
cliff,  so  that  a  defensive  technique  through  the  building 
of  walls  and  ramparts  never  developed.  In  the  pueblos 
of  the  plain  the  structure  itself,  wholly  or  mainly  arti¬ 
ficial,  represents  the  cliff,  and  the  actual  dwellings  are 
entered  at  a  considerable  height  from  the  ground,  and, 
as  in  the  former  case,  by  a  ladder. 

In  parts  of  the  world  other  than  those  above  men¬ 
tioned,  the  development  towards  civilization  seems  not 
to  have  been  towards  the  building  of  cities,  but  to  have 
expended  itself  rather  in  personal  decoration,  the  manu- 


Fig  26.— Ruins  of  “Cliff  Palace”;  'Mesa  Verde  National  Park,  Colorado,  “a  pueblo  built  in  a  cave”  (Fewkes).  This 
is  a  typical  though  unusually  extensive,  cliff-dwelling,  the  prehistoric  predecessor  of  the  plains-pueblo  of  modern 
times.  (From  a  photograph  loaned  by  C.  C.  Willoughby.) 


MATERIAL  AND  METHODS 


117 


facture  of  beautiful  implements  and  weapons,  and  in 
the  practice  of  hazardous  and  warlike  deeds,  so  that  a 
people  who,  from  their  artifacts,  would  show  a  high 
grade  of  culture,  would  be  found  living  in  caves  or  in 
low  huts  of  the  simplest  construction.  This  explains 
the  absence  of  city  sites  in  northern  Europe  before  late 
prehistoric  times,  while  otherwise  civilization  reached  a 
high  point. 

In  two  most  unexpected  regions  occur  ruins  which, 
although  of  the  simplest  construction,  are  as  yet  en¬ 
tirely  unsolved.  These  localities  are  Rhodesia,  South 
Africa,  and  the  island  of  Yap,  in  the  Caroline  group, 
South  Pacific.  These  ruins  consist  of  walls  of  so-called 
Cyclopean  masonry,  and  have  not  as  yet  been  sufficiently 
excavated  to  find  what  forms  of  artifacts,  if  any,  are 
connected  with  them.  In  spite  of  the  somewhat  extrava¬ 
gant  speculations  excited  by  the  presence  of  ruins  like 
these  in  such  unexpected  places,  their  significance  is 
probably  merely  that  of  ancient  dwellings,  or  “cities,’* 
built  by  the  ancestors  of  the  present  inhabitants,  per¬ 
haps  something  like  those  of  the  pueblos  of  Arizona  and 
New  Mexico,  and  does  not  demand  the  hypothesis  of 
great  civilizations,  now  absolutely  lost  and  forgotten. 

26.  Culture  Sites  Buried  Beneath  Volcanic  Deposits. 
— The  classical  illustration  of  this  condition  is  that  fur¬ 
nished  by  Pompeii  and  Herculaneum,  an  occurrence  well 
within,  not  merely  the  historic  period,  but  at  a  time  and 
place  which  produced  excellent  contemporaneous  written 
records.  It  is  always  possible,  also,  that  a  similar  site 
from  prehistoric  times  may  be  brought  to  light,  and 
there  is  every  reason  to  expect  that  in  that  case  the  pres¬ 
ervation  of  objects  would  be  as  perfect  as  at  Pompeii. 


ns 


MAN'S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


The  experiences  there  acquired,  and  the  numrous  meth¬ 
ods  of  excavation  and  after-treatment,  are  therefore  of 
great  value  to  the  historian. 

In  a  few  localities  the  probable  or  certain  remains  of 
early  human  activity  have  already  been  found  preserved 
beneath  deposits  of  volcanic  origin,  although  the  finds 
themselves  are  of  rather  subordinate  interest.  Thus  at 
Aurillac  in  Cantal,  Depte.  Auvergne,  France,  there  oc¬ 
curs  beneath  volcanic  deposits  of  upper  Oligocene  date  a 
stratum  of  sand  filled  with  typical  eoliths,  that  is,  rough 
pieces  of  flint  with  somewhat  doubtful  indications  of  use 
such  as  would  be  given  them  if  employed  for  simple 
purposes  by  a  hand  shaped  like  that  of  man  (cf.  discus¬ 
sion  of  eoliths  in  §§32  and  33).  It  is  assumed  that  the 
sand  was  accumulated  along  a  river  bank,  burying  from 
time  to  time  the  worked  flints  left  there,  and  that  ulti¬ 
mately  the  volcano  of  Cantal  awoke  to  activity  and  cov¬ 
ered  with  its  deposits  the  entire  region,  a  veritable 
‘  ‘  eolithic  Pompeii.  ’  ’ 1  Another  ancent  site,  referred  to 
the  Magdalenian  Period  in  the  Quaternary,  has  been 
found  above  Andernach  on  the  Rhine,  where  beneath  a 
volcanic  deposit  are  found  hearths,  split  bones  of  horse 
and  reindeer,  objects  of  bone  and  horn,  such  as  harpoons 
and  lances,  as  well  as  numerous  paleoliths.  Although  the 
most  of  the  volcanic  deposits  of  this  region  date  from 
the  Oligocene,  as  in  the  previous  case,  the  character  of 
the  artifacts  and  the  species  of  animals  represented,  as 
found  below  the  lava,  place  this  particular  eruption  much 
later,  a  conclusion  also  allowed  from  the  geological  con¬ 
ditions. 


1  Cf.  Forrer ;  Joe .  cit.,  p.  35. 


MATERIAL  AND  METHODS 


119 


Perhaps  no  extensive  prehistoric  site  of  this  nature, 
with  remains  of  man  himself  as  well  as  of  his  work,  may 
ever  he  found,  yet  it  is  always  a  possibility,  and  if  found 
is  liable  to  yield  results  which,  in  completeness  of  preser¬ 
vation,  far  surpass  anything  hitherto  brought  to  light. 

Somewhat  similar  in  final  result  to  an  inundation  of 
lava  is  the  overwhelming  of  a  culture  site  by  a  landslide. 
Traditions  of  such  catastrophies  within  historic  times 
exist,  like  that  of  the  supposed  mediaeval  town  of  San 
Mauritio,  near  Porlezza,  at  the  east  end  of  the  lake  of 
Lugano,  in  Italy,  which  is  the  local  explanation  of  the 
presence  of  a  ruined  church  tower,  of  the  twelfth  or 
thirteenth  century,  situated  close  under  the  mountain, 
and  partially  buried  beneath  a  detritus  of  small  stones. 
Such  a  circumstance  would  be  naturally  very  unusual, 
yet  it  is  to  chances  like  these  that  archeology,  historic 
or  prehistoric,  is  often  indebted  for  the  preservation  of 
some  of  its  most  valuable  material,  and  is  here  mentioned 
as  a  possible  cause  for  the  preservation  of  data. 

27.  Search  for  Objects  Lying  Under  Water. — This 
form  of  archeological  investigation,  for  a  long  time  al¬ 
luring  in  its  possibilities,  has  been  actually  employed 
only  within  the  past  few  years,  but  has  already  yielded 
many  valuable  results.  Thus  far  the  work  has  been 
confined  to  lakes  and  rivers,  and  to  the  shallower  seas 
and  harbors,  but  it  is  within  the  range  of  possibility 
that  even  the  deeper  waters  of  midocean  may  not  prove 
to  future  generations  so  inaccessible  as  to  us,  and  that 
even  the  ocean  depths  may  some  time  be  made  to  part 
with  their  records  of  early  history.  Although  owing  to 
the  late  development  of  ocean  navigation  such  finds  will 
belong  practically  to  the  period  of  written  history,  there 


120 


MAN'S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


is  no  question  but  that  the  ocean  is  already  a  vast  store¬ 
house  of  objects  of  human  workmanship,  the  results  of 
countless  shipwrecks. 

True  prehistoric  remains,  on  the  other  hand,  are  to 
be  looked  for  in  the  waters  of  lakes  and  rivers,  and 
those  which  have  been  the  center  of  human  life  and  ac¬ 
tivity  from  the  earliest  times,  such  as  the  Tiber,  the 
Seine,  and  the  Thames,  must  cover  inexhaustible  mu¬ 
seums  of  objects,  sunk  deep  in  the  slime  of  their  beds, 
yet  capable  of  ultimate  recovery  through  methods  al¬ 
ready  known  or  soon  to  be  perfect. 

The  methods  to  be  employed  in  such  research  are  nat¬ 
urally  of  two  kinds,  dredging  or  scraping  the  bottom 
by  means  of  instruments  let  down  from  the  surface,  and 
draining  or  diverting  the  water  for  a  time,  thus  laying 
bare  the  bed  and  rendering  it  accessible  to  the  ordinary 
methods  of  the  excavator.  Thus  a  project  for  tempor¬ 
arily  diverting  the  course  of  the  Tiber  as  it  flows  through 
Rome  has  already  been  agitated,  though  as  yet  without 
results.  Such  an  enterprise  could  hardly  fail  to  bring 
to  light  objects  of  the  greatest  value,  the  seven-branched 
Jewish  candle-stick,  to  mention  one  of  them;  yet  the 
astonishing  unproductiveness  of  the  Lake  of  Haarlem 
in  Holland  serves  as  a  check  upon  excessive  hope.  This 
lake  was  formed  in  the  fifteenth  century  by  the  over¬ 
flow  of  the  Rhine,  and  became  the  scene  of  continual  ac¬ 
tivity,  including  a  naval  battle.  This  lake  was  drained 
by  extensive  and  costly  engineering  operations  con¬ 
ducted  through  the  years  1840-1853,  yet  the  land  once 
covered  by  it,  eighteen  miles  in  length  and  nine  in 
breadth,  has  yielded  nothing  whatever  of  the  objects 
which  must  have  been  lost  in  its  waters  during  the  four 


MATERIAL  AND  METHODS 


121 


centuries  of  its  existence,  and  this  in  spite  of  the  very 
numerous  irrigation  ditches  which  traverse  every  por¬ 
tion  of  the  reclaimed  area. 

The  other  method  of  search,  that  through  various 
forms  of  dredging,  has  thus  far  been  much  more  pro¬ 
ductive,  and  has  been  greatly  assisted  in  late  years  by 
the  employment  of  various  methods  which  in  shallow 
waters  render  the  bottom  more  or  less  clearly  visible. 
Thus  a  form  of  water  telescope,  the  bathyscope,  was  in¬ 
strumental  in  the  recovery,  in  1900-1901,  of  a  shipload 
of  bronze  and  marble  statues,  wrecked  off  the  island  of 
Cythera  in  early  Roman  imperial  times,  as  they  were 
being  carried  to  Italy.  After  being  discovered  they  were 
obtained  by  divers,  and  now  form  some  of  the  most 
noteworthy  objects  in  the  National  Museum  at  Athens. 
Another  instrument  with  a  similar  object,  the  hydro¬ 
scope,  has  recently  been  perfected  by  an  Italian,  Giu¬ 
seppe  Pino,  and  is  being  applied  to  a  search  in  Vigo  Bay, 
off  the  coast  of  Spain.  These  and  similar  methods  may 
he  looked  to  for  the  recovery  of  much  valuable  mate¬ 
rial  of  the  more  recent  period,  although  addition  to 
our  knowledge  of  actual  prehistory  by  this  means  is  not 
to  be  expected. 

28.  Chance  Findings. — Wherever  men  have  lived  and 
wandered,  whether  as  solitary  hunters  or  as  nomadic 
tribes,  they  carry  with  them  objects  of  a  durable  nature, 
so  elaborated  by  their  own  skill  as  to  be  easily  recog¬ 
nized  as  the  product  of  human  handiwork.  Such  objects, 
of  stone,  of  bone  or  metal,  of  clay  or  glass,  collectively 
termed  artifacts ,  furnish  imperishable  records  of  man’s 
former  activity.  As  described  above,  artifacts  collect 
about  the  sites  of  continuous  human  occupation,  and  are 


122 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


thickly  strewn  among  the  ruined  walls  of  prehistoric 
cities  or  upon  the  floors  of  caves  used  as  dwellings. 
Aside  from  such  general  localities,  where  artifacts  are 
lost  or  dropped  at  random,  they  are  often  intentionally 
placed  in  the  graves  with  the  dead,  or  committed  to  the 
ground  for  safe  keeping  and  never  recovered.  It  thus 
happens  that,  in  lands  where  man  has  long  existed,  the 
earth  becomes  strewn,  as  it  were,  with  cultural  objects, 
and  these  may  be  met  with  at  any  time.  Thus  almost 
every  American  has  picked  up  in  the  field,  or  along 
some  country  road,  at  least  one  flint  or  quartz  arrow 
point,  or  perhaps  a  stone  axe ;  while  in  many  parts  of 
Europe  artifacts,  not  of  stone  alone,  but  often  of  bronze 
or  other  metal,  are  frequently  found,  as  well  as  coins 
and  bits  of  glass  from  later  periods.  It  is  obvious  that 
such  objects,  although  distributed  without  system,  are 
yet  most  frequently  met  with  in  places  which,  from 
reasons  of  physical  geography,  form  natural  trails  or 
passes,  or  where  a  protected  bit  of  meadow  land  offers 
advantages  to  the  primitive  agriculturist.  It  is,  for 
example,  a  general  rule  that  towns  and  villages  are  lo¬ 
cated  among  favorable  natural  surroundings,  and  that 
the  same  advantages,  like  a  bend  in  a  river,  a  tributary 
stream,  a  hill  slope  with  an  exposure  in  some  definite 
direction,  with  numerous  springs  along  the  higher  levels, 
and  so  on,  are  equally  desirable  in  all  stages  of  culture. 
It  thus  happens  that  in  a  country  in  which  one  popu¬ 
lation  is  replaced  by  another  the  centers  of  population 
of  the  two  for  the  most  part  coincide,  and  that  the  cities 
of  the  replacing  folk  are  erected  on  the  ruins  of  the  old. 
Thus  it  was  that  the  promontory  of  Troy  has  been  the 
seat  of  seven  culture  sites,  while  the  surrounding  conn- 


MATERIAL  AND  METHODS 


123 


try  lias  none,  and  thus  also,  in  America,  the  sites  of  the 
most  important  of  the  aboriginal  towns  are  now,  with 
a  few  exceptions  either  way,  occupied  by  the  largest 
towns  of  the  European  race.  Since,  moreover,  a  trail 
or  road  is  constructed  for  the  purpose  of  connecting 
important  centers,  these  will  also  coincide,  and  thus  one 
culture  covers  another.1 

As  a  result  of  the  above  principles,  the  very  best 
places  in  which  to  look  for  chance  findings  from  past 
times  are  approximately  those  which  are  most  populous 
at  the  present  da}",  or,  as  this  is  often  inconvenient,  the 
fields  and  lanes  in  the  immediate  vicinity. 

Often,  too,  the  topography  of  a  country  concentrates 
human  traffic  along  definite  restricted  places.  This  is 
illustrated  simply  by  the  numerous  “carrying  places’1 
for  canoes  in  the  wilderness  of  Maine  and  Canada,  nar¬ 
row  places  between  two  river  systems  near  their  head¬ 
waters,  and  as  the  same  carrying  places  must  have  been 
used  for  many  hundreds,  if  not  thousands,  of  years,  they 
are  especially  favorable  for  the  search  for  objects  of  hu¬ 
man  culture.  An  important  mountain  pass  illustrates  the 
same  principle  upon  a  much  greater  scale,  since  not 
only  has  the  general  traffic  between  the  lands  thus  con¬ 
nected  been  concentrated  along  certain  of  these,  but  large 
armies  have  marched  over  them,  with  all  the  chances  of 

1  In  New  England,  where  a  thriving  European  population  has 
replaced  a  populous  aboriginal  one,  many  of  the  principal  high¬ 
ways  coincide  with  important  Indian  trails,  and  the  history  of 
the  transformation  from  one  to  the  other  is  well  known — trail, 
bridle-path,  country  road,  and  finally  state  road  covered  with 
macadam  or  tarvia.  Thus  the  “Old  Pequot  trail”  in  Rhode 
Island,  from  Narragansett  Pier  to  Westerly,  or  the  trail  from 
Patuxet  (Plymouth.  Mass.)  to  the  Wampanoag  center  at  Sow- 
wams  (Warren,  R.  I.). 


324 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


losing  various  objects.  Occasionally,  also,  some  local  con¬ 
dition  tends  to  concentrate  objects  of  a  particular  kind 
in  a  single  place,  the  explanation  of  which  is  not  always 
clear.  Thus  a  certain  ploughed  field  in  Massachusetts  was 
for  a  long  time  a  noted  place  for  stone  arrow  heads.  Many 
handfuls  were  picked  up  in  a  definite  spot,  with  a  radius 
of  fifty  feet,  but  in  nearly  all  cases  the  points  were  broken 
off.  An  examination  of  the  locality  revealed  the  fol¬ 
lowing:  The  field  lay  along  the  side  of  a  gentle  slope, 
at  the  foot  of  which  ran  a  little  brook  which  expanded 
here  into  a  natural  spring.  Restoring  in  imagination 
the  early  conditions,  we  would  have  an  aboriginal  forest 
of  great  tree  trunks  clear  of  undergrowth,  and  deer 
frequently  coming  to  the  spring.  The  hunters  would 
naturally  resort  to  this  place,  concealing  themselves 
upon  the  other  side  of  the  brook,  which  offered  a  better 
view  of  the  spring,  and  shoot  at  the  deer  as  they  came 
down  to  drink.  The  arrows  that  missed  would  strike 
the  trunks  of  the  trees  in  the  opposite  hillside,  a  dis¬ 
tance  of  only  twenty-five  to  fifty  meters,  and  would  either 
fall  to  the  ground  or  remain  imbedded  in  the  trees.  The 
fall  and  decay  of  the  tree  trunks  would  liberate  the 
included  arrowheads,  and  this  process,  continuing  for 
a  long  period,  would  ultimately  concentrate  a  quantity 
of  these  at  this  spot,  mainly  with  the  points  broken  by 
impact  with  the  tree  trunks. 


CHAPTER  III 


EUROPEAN  PREHISTORY 

Importance  of  Europe  in  the  Study  of  Prehistory — The  Four 
Ages  of  Human  Culture — Recent  Modifications  of  Prehis¬ 
toric  Chronology — The  Eolithic  Aye — Characteristics  of 
Eoliths — The  Users  of  the  Eoliths— The  Period  of  Strepy ; 
the  Transition  to  the  Paleolithic — Early  Paleolithic  Timex 
— The  Cliellean  Period — The  Aclieulian  Period — Middle 
Paleolithic  Times;  the  Mousterian  Period — The  Aurigna- 
cian  Period ;  the  Solutrean  Period ;  the  Magdalenian 
Period — Late  Paleolithic  Times;  the  Azilian-Tardenoisian 
Period ;  the  Kitchen-Middens — The  Transition  to  the 
Neolithic — The  Neolithic  Aye;  Modes  of  Living;  the  Art  of 
Weaving;  the  Ceramic  Art;  Masculine  Activities — Mega- 
litliic  Temples — The  First  Metals;  the  Cyprolithic  Aye — 
Casting  and  Smelting;  the  Advent  of  Bronze — The  Btonzr 
Aye — The  Introduction  of  Iron — The  Early  Iron  Aye;  the 
Hallstatt  and  La  Tene  Periods — The  Transition  from  Pre¬ 
history  to  History. 

29.  Importance  of  Europe  in  the  Study  of  Prehistory. 
— Not  only  has  the  foundation  of  the  science  of  prehis¬ 
tory  been  laid  by  Europeans,  but  the  great  majority  of 
the  objects  upon  which  the  science  is  based  have  been 
excavated  from  European  soil  and  stored  in  European 
museums.  In  Europe,  also,  there  lias  been  a  practically 
continuous  history  of  human  development  from  the  first 
crude  attempts  to  employ  the  external  forces  of  nature 
to  the  highest  modern  culture,  an*d  the  periods  into  which 
this  enormous  extent  of  time  has  been  divided  have  been 
without  exception  based  upon  European  material  and 
named  from  European  sites.  It  is  d  priori  probable 

125 


126 


MAX'S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


that  in  either  Asia  or  Africa,  certainly  in  the  former, 
the  history  of  man  has  been  equally  long  and  equally 
continuous ;  it  may  even  be  that  here  occurred  the  actual 
development  of  the  successive  human  or  semi-human 
types  that  have  appeared  in  Europe  from  time  to  time ; 
yet  thus  far  the  Asiatic  deposits  have  been  but  little 
worked,  and  the  actual  data  for  Asiatic  prehistory  are 
not  yet  in  our  possession. 

As  for  the  New  World,  the  people  inhabiting  both 
North  and  South  America  at  the  time  of  the  discovery 
belonged,  with  the  possible  exception  of  the  Eskimos, 
to  a  single  homogeneous  race,  that  showed  no  definite 
indication  of  a  long  previous  history  on  the  continent. 
In  culture,  they  exhibited,  it  is  true,  a  number  of  differ¬ 
ent  stages,  yet  these  ranged  mainly  from  the  early  Neo¬ 
lithic  to  the  early  Bronze  Ages  (the  latter  represented 
by  copper),  and  furnished  no  generally  acknowledged 
instance  of  Paleolithic  culture,  or  of  Quaternary  exist¬ 
ence.  Recent  discoveries  in  the  Delaware  valley  have 
proven  to  some  the  existence  of  a  Quaternary  human 
race,  but  the  evidences  are  but  faint,  and  restricted  to 
this  immediate  region.  The  continent  is  thus  capable 
of  furnishing  data  for  Neolithic  development  in  place, 
and  possibly  for  a  disconnected  glimpse  of  Quaternary 
man  in  a  single  locality,  but  there  is  nothing  like  the 
connected  history  of  human  development  as  found  in 
Europe.1 


1  The  best  general  textbook  of  European  Prehistory  is  that 
of  Dechelette,  “Manuel  d’Archeologie,”  published  by  Picard, 
Paris.  The  first  volume,  “Archeologie  Preliistorique,”  appeared 
in  11)08,  and  a  second  Volume,  “Archeologie  Celtique.’’  came  out 
in  1914,  but  soon  after  the  author  fell  in  the  defense  of  his 
country,  and  the  place  of  Dechelette  remains  unfilled.  A  con- 


EUROPEAN  PREHISTORY 


127 


30.  The  Four  Ages  of  Human  Culture. — The  ancient 
classical  writers  declared  that  in  the  earliest  times  man¬ 
kind,  ever  at  strife  each  with  his  fellow,  fought  with 
such  natural  weapons  as  fists,  teeth,  and  nails,  aug¬ 
mented  by  stones,  and  by  branches  plucked  from  trees. 
They  were  for  a  long  time  ignorant  of  the  use  of  fire, 
but  after  its  employment  had  been  learned,  metals  were 
gradually  introduced,  first  bronze,  then  iron.  There  was 
thus  established  an  early  division  of  human  history  into 
three  distinct  ages,  characterized  respectively  by  the 
use  of  stone ,  bronze  and  iron. 


venient  compendium  in  small  compass,  riclily  illustrated  and 
giving  the  essentials  of  the  “Urgeschlichte  des  Europaer,” 
written  by  Dr.  Robert  Forrer,  was  published  also  in  1908,  by 
Spemann,  Stuttgart.  A  third  general  work  of  great  value,  al¬ 
though  confined  mainly  to  Scandinavia,  is  the  “Nordische  Alter- 
tumskunde”  of  Sophus  Muller,  the  successor  of  Worsaie  in  the 
Museum  at  Copenhagen  (2  vols.  Truhner,  Strassburg,  1898). 
The  same  author  issued  also  a  shorter  and  more  general  work 
by  the  same  publisher,  “Urgeschiclite  Europas,”  in  1895,  which 
is  especially  full  on  the  Bronze  Age  and  later  times,  but  neglects 
the  Ages  of  stone.  For  these  latter  there  is  the  book  of  Iloernes, 
“Der  Diluviale  Mensch  in  Europa,”  Braunschweig,  19C3,  well- 
treated  but  condensed ;  but  by  far  the  best,  as  well  as  the 
newest,  is  “The  Men  of  the  Old  Stone  Age”  by  Henry  Fairfield 
Osborn  (Scribner,  1916).  This  is  limited  to  the  times  given  in 
the  title,  but  may  be  reinforced  by  Tyler’s  “The  New  Stone 
Age  in  Northern  Europe,”  Scribner’s,  1921,  and  by  the  works 
of  the  two  de  Mortillets,  “Be  Prehistorique,”  1S94,  and  “Le 
Prehistoire,”  1910,  both  published  in  Paris..  Other  and  older 
works  in  English  are  the  classic  of  Sir  John  Lubbock  (Lord 
Avebury),  “Prehistoric  Times,”  now  in  its  sixth  edition,  and 
published  by  the  Appletons ;  the  works  of  Sir  John  Evans, 
“Ancient  Stone  Implements”  and  “Ancient  Bronze  Imple¬ 
ments,”  from  the  same  publishers,  and  Boyd  Dawkins’s 
“Early  Man  in  Britain,”  now  out  of  print,  and  extremely 
rare.  A  recent  book  by  Sollas,  “Ancient  Hunters”  (Mac¬ 
millan,  1911)  describes  the  men  of  the  Stone  Ages,  and 
makes  interesting  comparisons  between  them  and  primitive 
tribes  now  living.  There  are  also  numerous  reviews  of  foreign 
work  given  by  George  Grant  MacCurdy  in  the  American  Anthro¬ 
pologist  and  in’  various  Smithsonian  Annual  Reports. 


12S 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


Lucretius  states  with  great  clearness  that  *  ‘  the  ancient 
weapons  were  fists,  nails  and  teeth ;  also  stones,  and 
added  to  these  fragments  of  boughs  from  the  forest ;  but 
after  fire  and  flames  were  once  understood,  the  forces 
of  iron  and  bronze  were  discovered.  The  use  of  bronze 
was  known  before  that  of  iron.  ’  ’ 1 

Horace,  though  less  explicit,  draws  a  spirited  picture 
of  early  times  “when  man  first  crept  out  of  the  new- 
formed  earth,  a  dumb  and  filthy  herd,  he  fought  for 
acorns  and  lurking-places  with  nails  and  fists,  then 
with  clubs,  and  at  last  with  arms,  which  taught  by  ex¬ 
perience,  they  had  forged.  They  then  invented  names 
for  things,  and  words  to  express  their  thoughts;  after 
which  they  began  to  desist  from  war,  to  fortify  cities, 
and  enact  laws.  ’  ’ 2 

It  is  then  a  little  surprising  that,  with  these  clear  state¬ 
ments  of  early  beginnings  before  them — at  once  the  most 
natural  and,  to  scholars,  the  most  probable — the  phil¬ 
osophers  of  later  centuries,  blinded  by  the  glamor  of  a 
former  Golden  Age,  or  Garden  of  Eden,  rejected  for 
centuries  this  natural  method  of  subdividing  human 
history.  Yet  this  they  did,  totally  and  completely,  and 


1  Lucretius,  “De  Rerum  Natura,”  V.  12S2  ff. 

“Anna  antiqua  manus,  ungues,  dentesque  fuerunt, 

Et  Japides,  ct  item  sylvarum  fragmina  rami ; 
Posterius  ferri  vis  est,  aerisque  reperta, 

Et  prior  aeris  erat,  quam  ferri,  cognitus  ususP 

2  Herat.,  Satirae;  Lib  I.  Sat.  III. 

“Quam  prorepserunt  primis  animalia  terris. 

Mutum  et  turpe  pecas,  glandem  atque  cubilia  propter 
Unguibus  et  pugnis,  dein  fustibus,  atque  it  a  porro 
Pugnabant  arm  is,  quae  post  fabricaverat  usus; 

Donee  verba,  quibus  voces  sensusque  notarent, 
IVominaque  invenere;  deliuc  absistere  bello, 

Oppida  coeperunt  munire,  et  ponere  leges.” 


E U II O I> E AN  PREHISTORY 


120 


it  was  revived  only  within  the  nineteenth  century  by  a 
Danish  scholar,  Christian  Thomsen.  As  curator  of  the 
great  National  Archeological  Museum  at  Copenhagen, 
Thomsen  arranged  his  material,  excavated  from  the  soil 
of  the  country,  according  to  the  threefold  classification  of 
Lucretius,  stone ,  bronze  and  iron ,  and  definitely  estab¬ 
lished  this  as  a  scientific  chronology  in  1836. 1 

This  foundation  laid  by  Thomsen  was  extensively  built 
upon  by  his  successor  in  the  Museum  at  Copenhagen, 
Worsaae,  who  established  a  further  subdivision  of  each 
of  the  three  primary  ages.  It  is  of  especial  importance 
to  note  that  his  two  subdivisions  of  the  Age  of  Stone 
were  (1)  the  Paleolithic,  or  Old  Stone  Age,  in  which  the 
implements  were  crudely  fashioned,  and  the  surface  left 
rough,  and  (2)  the  Neolithic,  or  New  Stone  Age,  the  im¬ 
plements  belonging  to  which  were  ground  down  to  a 
smooth,  or  polished,  surface.  His  subdivisions  of  the 
other  ages,  though  important,  proved  to  be  of  subordi¬ 
nate  value. 

There  were  thus  established  four  successive  ages  of 
human  activity,  as  registered  in  the  construction  of  their 
instruments,  as  follows : 

I.  Paleolithic  Age;  Old  Stone  Age;  surface  of  im¬ 
plements  left  rough. 

1  Thomsen,  C.  J..  “Ledetraad  til  Nordisk  Oldkyndighed,”  1836 
(Introduction  to  Nordic  Archeology). 

For  an  excellent  account  of  the  development  of  this  system, 
and  of  the  activity  of  these  founders  of  European  prehistory, 
cf.  Sophus  Muller,  “Nordishche  Altertumskunde,  Strassburg, 
1S97.  Bd.  1  ,pp.  217ff.  “Nilsson  on  the  Stone  Age”  (Engl. 
Transl. ;  edited  by  Sir  John  Lubbock,  is  also  a  classic  (London, 
Longmans,  Green  &  Co.,  1868).  The  original,  entitled  “Skan- 
dinaviska  Nordens  Erinvanare”  (The  Primitive  Inhabitants  of 
tbe  Scandinavian  North),  appeared  in  numbers  between  1838- 
1843.  Nilsson  was  Professor  of  Zoology  at  Lund,  in  Sweden. 


130 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


II.  Neolithic  Age;  New  Stone  Age;  surface  of  im¬ 
plements  smoothed  (“polished”). 

III.  Bronze  Age. 

IY.  Iron  Age. 

This  sequence  of  ages,  although  originally  established 
as  a  relative  chronology  for  the  remains  found  in  north¬ 
ern  Europe,  was  soon  found  applicable  to  other  regions 
as  well,  and  it  even  became  probable  that  these  four 
ages  represent  the  successive  and  necessary  steps  of 
human  development  everywhere.  Aside  from  the  dif¬ 
ferences  in  the  types  of  implements  themselves,  other 
constant  indications  of  distinct  phases  of  culture  were 
found  associated  with  each  type,  so  that  gradually 
the  main  characteristics  of  each  age  became  estab¬ 
lished. 

Thus,  in  the  Paleolithic  Age  man  was  a  nomad  hunter, 
without  any  knowledge  of  agriculture,  of  weaving,  of 
pottery,  or  of  the  domestication  of  animals.  He  lived 
in  caverns  and  rock  shelters,  the  occupancy  of  which 
he  disputed  with  the  cave  bear  and  other  fierce  beasts; 
his  clothes,  if  any,  consisted  of  the  skins  of  animals.  In 
Europe  at  least  the  early  part  of  this  age  fell  within 
the  time  of  the  Great  Ice,  and  such  glacial  animals  as 
the  mammoth,  the  reindeer,  the  cave  bear  and  the 
hairy  rhinoceros,  were  man’s  contemporaries. 

The  Neolithic  Age,  judging  from  its  remains,  gives  a 
much  more  pleasing  picture.  The  glaciers  had  disap¬ 
peared,  save  in  the  highest  mountains,  and  a  series  of 
beautiful  lakes  occupied  the  lower  levels.  In  some  dis¬ 
tricts  the  man  of  this  age  lived  in  settled  villages  upon 
the  rich  alluvial  plains  which  now  extended  in  places 


EUROPEAN  PREHISTORY 


131 


along  the  river  valleys ;  in  others  lie  planted  piles  over  the 
shallow  borders  of  the  lakes,  and  upon  them  erected 
whole  villages  of  huts,  while,  whenever  opportunity  af¬ 
forded,  he  was  still  not  above  enjoying  the  occasional 
shelter  of  the  caverns,  now  freed  forever  from  the  larger 
carnivora,  and  thus  kindled  his  fires  and  held  his  feasts 
upon  the  very  soil  that  had  buried  the  remains  of 
Paleolithic  man  and  his  activities. 

He  possessed  herds  of  sheep  and  goats,  animals,  as 
some  say,  hitherto  unknown  in  Europe,  and  presumably 
of  Asiatic  origin ;  he  tamed  the  horse,  which  a  cruder 
age  found  useful  only  for  food,  yet  failed  to  subdue  the 
huge  native  cattle  ( Bos  primigenius )  and  used  instead 
a  smaller  allied  form  ( Bos  taurus ),  also  apparently 
Asiatic.  He  was  still  a  skillful  hunter,  and,  especially 
in  the  lake  villages,  developed  numerous  methods  of 
capturing  fish.  While  the  male  members  of  the  commu¬ 
nity  engaged  thus  in  the  rougher  occupations  of  herd¬ 
ing  and  hunting,  the  women  developed  the  arts  of  pot¬ 
tery  and  weaving,  and  actual  fabrics,  woven  from  the 
wool  of  sheep  and  the  fibers  of  flax,  gradually  took  the 
place  of  the  more  unmanageable  skins.  Whether  the 
Neolithic  culture  was  attained  by  natural  development 
in  place  by  Paleolithic  Europeans,  or  whether  it  was 
imposed  from  without  through  immigration  from  outside 
of  Europe,  cannot  at  present  be  settled ;  and  the  same 
question,  although  in  a  less  insistent  form,  confronts  the 
student  of  the  transition  from  Neolithic  to  Bronze. 
Here,  however,  although  the  malleable  metals  themselves 
may  have  been  introduced  either  through  commerce  or 
by  invasion  of  alien  people,  there  could  have  been  no 


132 


MAX’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


complete  replacement  of  one  people  by  another,  as  some 
think  may  have  been  the  case  in  the  transition  between 
Paleolithic  and  Neolithic. 

The  next  age,  which  although  termed  the  Bronze  Age, 
is  characterized  by  the  introduction  of  all  the  common 
malleable  metals  found  in  a  free  or  easily  reducible 
state,  begins  with  the  use  of  such  free  metals  as  cop¬ 
per,  tin,  silver  and  gold,  elaborated  by  pounding;  then 
there  are  successively  introduced  the  arts  of  melt¬ 
ing  the  metals,  and  running  the  molten  liquids  into 
moulds ;  of  mixing  them  in  definite  proportions  to 
obtain  results  better  suited  to  definite  purposes ; 
and  finally  of  reducing  certain  of  them  from  their 
ores,  thus  greatly  increasing  the  amount  of  available 
material. 

From  the  Age  of  Bronze,  during  which  there  devel¬ 
oped  the  simple  smelting  operations  necessary  to  obtain 
copper  and  tin  from  ores,  the  transition  to  the  use  of 
iron  was  but  a  step,  and  consisted  mainly  in  the  discov¬ 
ery  of  methods  whereby  the  ores  of  this  metal,  more  re¬ 
fractory  than  those  of  copper  and  tin,  could  be  simi¬ 
larly  reduced,  and  here,  along  various  points  through 
the  metallic  ages,  written  history  begins.  Before  this, 
through  the  obscurity  of  the  early,  half-forgotten  le¬ 
gends  of  the  great  historic  nations,  we  hear  the  clash 
of  bronze  swords  against  bronze  armor;  and  the  ringing 
blows  struck  by  Achilles,  by  David,  or  by  Siegfried, 
blend  with  the  cadence  of  epic  poetry.  These  immortal 
poems  of  the  heroic  ages  give  us  rare  glimpses  of  Bronze 
Age  culture :  now  a  banquet  hall,  now  a  public  sacrifice, 
or  funeral  games,  and  again  an  idyl  of  primitive  family 


EUROPEAN  PREHISTORY 


133 


life.  Discounting  the  glamor  placed  about  them  by  the 
bards,  and  studying  them  in  the  twin  lights  of  excava¬ 
tion  and  ethnology,  or  the  study  of  primitive  peoples 
still  extant,  these  poems  describe  for  us  in  often  the 
minutest  detail,  the  times  and  the  people  long  thought 
forgotten  or  wholly  mythical.  Greece  was  scarcely  be¬ 
yond  the  Bronze  Age  when  she  acquired  the  art  of  writ¬ 
ing  from  further  east,  and  the  rapid  dissemination  of 
this  art  through  the  rest  of  Europe  found  the  natives  in 
various  stages  of  culture,  mainly  at  about  the  transition 
from  bronze  to  iron.  And  here,  with  the  ability  to  rec¬ 
ord  the  annals  of  the  people  in  some  form  of  writing, 
the  spade  yields  to  the  pen,  and  the  task  of  the  pre- 
historian  is  over. 

31.  Recent  Modifications  of  Prehistoric  Chronology . — 
The  later  progress  in  prehistorical  research,  which  for 
the  past  generation  has  been  increasingly  rapid,  has 
found  it  necessary  rather  to  expand  than  to  destroy  the 
foundation  laid  down  by  the  Scandinavian  archeologists. 
The  most  fundamental  addition  has  been  that  of  the  in¬ 
troduction  of  a  fifth  age,  earlier  than  the  Paleolithic, 
and  including  the  great  extent  of  time  that  has  elapsed 
between  the  picking  up  the  first  stones  with  an  intelli¬ 
gent  purpose,  and  the  acquirement  of  sufficient  knowl¬ 
edge  to  shape  them  into  the  crudest  form  of  paleo- 
liths.  To  this  age  of  dawning  intelligence  has  been  given 
the  appropriate  term  Eolithic  (Gr.  5'Hg>£  the  dawn). 
During  the  first,  and  indeed  the  greater,  part  of  this 
extensive  epoch,  sticks  and  stones,  and  probably  also  the 
bones  of  the  larger  animals,  were  awkwardly  grasped 
by  hands  still  accustomed  to  the  boughs  of  trees,  and 


134 


MAN'S  PREHISTORIC  FAST 


used  quite  as  they  were,  without  thought  of  bettering 
their  shape;  then,  after  this  step  was  first  taken,  tht  im¬ 
proved  implement  did  not  at  once  become  a  paleolith, 
but  there  must  have  intervened  a  long  period  of  time, 
during  which  these  implements  were  purposely  broken, 
with  some  attempt  at  shaping,  but  without  resulting  in 
any  definite  or  constant  forms.  Most  chronologists  reckon 
this  transition  period  with  the  Eolithic,  yec  a  few  propose 
for  it  a  distinct  place  in  the  enumeration  of  the  ages, 
and  give  it  the  name,  of  Arch  eolithic  or  Transpaleolithic. 
A  similar  tendency  leads  some  also  to  separate  from  the 
Paleolithic  Age  a  short  period0  of  transition  to  the  Neo¬ 
lithic,  during  which  the  implements  were  but  partly 
smoothed,  yet  finely  and  carefully  made;  the  Mesolithic, 
or  Transn eolithic. 

Again,  too,  some  wish  to  emphasize  the  introductory 
period  in  the  use  of  metals,  during  which  certain  metals 
which  occur  free,  especially  copper,  were  worked  much 
as  if  they  were  stone,  and  shaped  on  the  anvil  by  beat¬ 
ing.  This  stage  probably  preceded  everywhere  the  use 
of  bronze,  the  preparation  if  which  demands  not  only 
the  knowledge  of  both  copper  and  tin,  but  the  arts  of 
fusing  and  molding.  To  this  earliest  of  the  metallic 
periods,  in  which,  while  men  were  still  in  the  Stone  Age, 
and  used  for  the  most  part  stone  implements,  a  few 
metals  were  introduced,  although  treated  in  every  re¬ 
spect  like  stones,  the  term  Cyproiithic  has  been  applied. 
Thus,  while  to  the  more  conservative  prehistorians  the 
ages  of  human  development  may  be  still  limited  to  five, 
it  is  also  possible,  and  sometimes  convenient,  to  extend 
them  to  eight.  The  comparison  of  these  two  classifica¬ 
tions  is  as  follows: 


EUROPEAN  PREHISTORY 


Chronology  with  five  Ages 
Eolitliic . 

Paleolithic . 

Neolithic  . 

Bronze . 

Iron  . 


Chronology  with  eight  Ages 
(Eolithic 

. I  Archeolithic 

\  Paleolithic 

. \  Mesolithic 

.  Neolithic 

[Cyprolithic 
l  Bronze 
. Iron 


Another  modification,  the  result  of  the  increase  of  our 
knowledge,  has  been  the  subdivision  of  each  of  these 
ages  into  periods ,  based  upon  certain  characteristics  in 
the  implements  found,  and  upon  their  relative  age,  geo¬ 
logically.  These  periods  bear  each  the  name  of  some 
locality  in  which  typical  deposits  occur,  usually  the  first 
known.  Thus,  the  Chellean  Period  of  the  Paleolithic 
Age,  is  named  from  the  French  town  of  Chelles  (Seine- 
et-Marne),  near  which  occur  deposits  investigated  by  de 
Mortillet  in  1887,  and  characterized  by  a  certain  low 
type  of  paleolith,  unlike  any  previously  studied.  In 
chronological  sequence,  as  deduced  both  from  the  local 
geological  conditions  and  the  types  of  implement,  the 
Chellean  Period  seems  to  follow  directly  the  Strepyan, 
a  period  named  from  Strepy  in  Belgium,  and  antedates 
by  a  little  the  Acheulian,  a  period  established  upon  the 
French  deposits  at  St.  Acheul,  in  the  valley  of  the 
Somme.  It  is  to  be  anticipated  that  the  number  of 
these  periods,  and  of  the  stages  of  human  devolpment 
which  they  represent,  will  be  somewhat  increased  with 
greater  knowledge,  yet  for  the  most  part  the  implements 
found  in  localities  newly  opened  up  belong  to  periods 
already  established,  and  thus,  as  with  geological  pe- 


136 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


riods,  tlie  prehistoric  sites  found  in  any  part  of  the 
world,  or  at  least  throughout  Europe,  where  the  condi¬ 
tions  have  been  more  thoroughly  studied,  can  be  con¬ 
sidered  as  “Acheulian,”  “ Mousterian, ’ ’  “Solutrean,” 
etc.,  wholly  in  accordance  with  the  types  of  implements 
found,  without  reference  to  the  geographical  location. 
In  estimating  the  period  of  a  given  deposit,  the  geologi¬ 
cal  conditions  have  a  certain  weight ;  yet  if  must  be  rec¬ 
ognized  that  the  various  stages  in  human  development 
were  not  necessarily  passed  through  at  the  same  time 
in  all  parts  of  Europe,  and  that,  in  the  presumable  iso¬ 
lation  of  one  region  from  another,  the  men  inhabiting 
one  part  of  the  continent  might  be  in  the  midst  of  a 
Mousterian  culture,  while  others  had  scarcely  attained 
the  Chellean  or  Acheulian. 

While  it  is  thus  seen  that,  with  the  early  inhabitants 
of  Europe  living  in  different  grades  of  culture  at  the 
same  time,  and  perhaps  progressing  at  different  rates, 
it  is  not  wholly  possible  to  form  an  absolute  chronology 
in  years  for  the  successive  periods  of  prehistory,  or  to 
reconcile  them  exactly  with  the  various  geological  events 
of  the  Ice  Age  and  afterwards,  still  many  have  attempted 
a  general  correspondence  between  the  two  sets  of  data. 
Upon  the  geological  side  the  successive  advances  and 
retreats  of  ice,  as  given  in  Chapter  I  above,  furnish  a 
good  background  for  dating  the  periods,  especially  as 
the  bones  of  the  successive  faunas,  the  relative  dates  of 
which  are  well  known,  are  also  usually  found  in  the  cul¬ 
ture  deposits,  under  circumstances  which  show  the  two 
to  be  contemporaneous.  If,  for  example,  a  deposit  con¬ 
tains  flints  crudely  shaped,  and  also  reindeer  bones 
split  for  the  extraction  of  marrow,  the  case  is  proven 


EUROPEAN  PREHISTORY 


137 


that  the  men  who  made  those  flints  used  reindeer  as 
food,  and  that  the  climate  was  such  as  was  suitable  for 
those  animals.  Actual  sketches  of  the  wild  ox,  the  rhino¬ 
ceros,  and  the  mammoth  carved  upon  bone,  or  sometimes 
upon  mammoth  ivory,  have  quite  the  weight  of  his¬ 
torical  documents,  and  prove  the  absolute  contempo¬ 
raneity  of  these  animals  with  the  men  who  used  the 
associated  types  of  flints.  In  this  way,  by  the  combina¬ 
tion  of  all  possible  evidence,  both  geological  and  cul¬ 
tural,  by  the  study  of  the  associated  strata,  and  by  the 
study  of  the  artifacts,  the  successive  periods  of  Europe 
prehistory  have  been  made  out,  and  synchronized  with 
the  geological  events  with  sufficient  certainty  to  allow 
a  definite  succession  with  relative  dates.  Such  a 
chronological  table  of  European  prehistory  is  here  pre¬ 
sented,  and  it  may  serve  both  as  a  brief  general  survey 
of  the  total  period  of  human  activity  so  far  as  known, 
and  also  as  a  table  of  contents  for  the  more  detailed 
account  given  in  the  ensuing  pages. 

While  the  succession  of  prehistoric  periods  as  given 
here  is  accepted  with  only  slight  modification  by  all  pre¬ 
historians,  there  is  still  some  difference  of  opinion  con¬ 
cerning  the  synchrony  of  these  periods  with  the  geologi¬ 
cal  events.  By  the  study  of  both  artifacts  and  the  bones 
of  the  associated  fauna  it  is  generally  conceded  that  the 
Mousterian  and  Magdalenian  Periods  of  the  Middle 
Paleolithic  were  mainly  spent  in  a  cold  climate,  in  which 
cave  dwelling  was  a  necessity,  while  certain  other  pe¬ 
riods,  like  the  Solutrean,  and  perhaps  the  Chellean,  show 
a  warmer  climate,  and  extensive  plains,  with  residence 
in  the  open.  Because  of  this  some  have  placed  the  two 
first  within  the  long  period  of  the  Wurm  Ice,  with  an 


138 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


hypothetical  warmer  time  in  the  middle  for  the  Solu¬ 
trean,  while  others  have  even  been  inclined  to  push  the 
Mousterian  Period  back  into  the  time  of  the  Piss  Ice, 
with  the  Solutrean  filling  the  warmer  interglacial  in¬ 
terval  between  this  and  the  Wurm.  This  would  put  the 
Acheulian  and  Chellean  between  the  Riss  and  the  still 
older  Minclel  Ice,  leaving  for  the  time  of  the  Strepyan 
(pre-Chellean)  activity  the  Mindel  Ice  itself.  From  this 
extreme  antiquity,  which  is  the  farthest  back  ever  pro¬ 
posed,  modern  investigators,  led  mainly  by  the  French 
archeologist,  Obermeier,  have  brought  the  Middle  Paleo¬ 
lithic  much  farther  forward,  and  placed  the  Solutrean 
just  after  the  close  of  the  Wurm  Ice,  and  the  Aurig- 
nacian  and  Mousterian  within  it.  The  cave  life,  and 
evidently  cold  climate  of  parts  of  the  Magdalenian  Pe¬ 
riod,  are  then  explained  as  due  to  the  lesser  glaciations 
of  the  early  Pleistocene,  the  Biihl,  and  the  Gschnitz, 
bringing  the  transition  periods  (late  Paleolithic  and 
Neolithic)  well  on  toward  modern  times,  with  the 
modern  river  systems  already  represented  by  chains 
of  lakes,1 

1  For  recent  attempts  to  establish  approximate  dates  for  the 
periods  of  European  prehistory,  and  to  synchronize  them  with 
the  geological  events,  especially  those  of  the  great  Ice  Age,  as 
established  by  Penck,  cf.  of  the  following :  Boule,  M. :  “Observa¬ 
tions  sur  un  silex  taille  du  Jura,  et  sur  la  chronologie  de  M. 
Penck.”  U Anthropologic,  T.  19,  1908.  pp.  1-13.  Obermeier,  H. : 
“Ees  formations  glaciaires  des  Alpes  et  fhomme  paleolitliique.” 
L'Anthropologie,  T.  20.  1909.  pp.  496-522.  Schmidt,  R.  R. :  “Der 
Sirgenstein  und  dis  diluvialen  Kulturstatten  Wurttembergs.” 
Stuttgart,  1910.  47  pp. 

A  translation  of  several  earlier  papers  by  Obermeier  (from 
L'Anthropologie ,  T.  16,  1905,  and  T.  17,  1906),  together  with 
the  author’s  supplementary  notes  to  date,  is  to  be  found  in  the 
Smithsonian  Annual  Report  for  1906,  pp.  373-397,  with  the  title 
“Quaternary  Human  Remains  in  Central  Europe.”  In  this 
there  appears  a  partial  chronology,  according  to  the  author’s 


CHRONOLOGICAL  TABLE  OF  THE  DIVISIONS  OF  EUROPEAN  PREHISTORY 


Roman  Imperial 

Z 

La  Tene 

CC 

500  B.  C. 

Phoenician 

Merchants 

Homeric  Age 

/~N 

Hallstatt 

1000  B.  C. 
1200-1700  B.C. 

CD 

Late  Bronze 

UJ 

CD 

CL 

Middle  Bronze 

z 

o 

1700-2200  B.C. 

f —  ra 

5  §s 

CJ> 

Early  Bronze 

CO 

2200-3000  B.C. 

2500  B.  C.  2nd 

City  of  Hissarlik 
(Troy)  The 
"Burnt  City" 

3315  B.  C.  1st 
Dynasty  in  Egypt 

t±J  £ 

Q_  Qj 

"ca 

Hammered 
copper,  etc. 

6  S£ 

3000-4000  B.C. 

CD 

> 

Late  Neolithic 

O 

4000-4500  B.C. 

err 

Early  Neolithic 
(Robenhausian) 

Zj 

o 

UJ 

z 

4500-6000  B.C. 

6000-7000  B.C. 

UJ  N 

C/5 

Campignyan 

Forests 

UJ  « 

O  ra 

o  — 

Tardenoisian 

<D 

ca 

\  7000  B.C. 

1  9000  Years  ago 

> 

Forests 

~-S 

1  1  1  CO 

1  '  DAilN 

Azilian 

o 

j  £ 

rr1  05 

GSCHNITZ  - 

Magdalenian 

10,000  “ 

_ 

.1 

Extensive  forests 

Sporadic  forests 

fo  £ 

RilHL 

G5 

2 

O  w 
o_ 

Solutre'an 

■a 

o 

25,000  “ 

Br’unn 

a  5 

Ll 

Steppes 

"UH“ 

Aurignacian 

Aurignac 

Cro-magnon 

Tundra 

Mousterian 

Grimaldi 

Neandertal 

Acheulian 

Steppes 

Warm-temperate  forests 

Steppes 

UJ 

Chellean 

CO 

UJ 

150.000  " 

o 

UJ 

o 

o 

P.ISS 

Strepyan 

i  1 

175,000  " 

Piltdown  man 

If 

Tundra 

CO 

UJ 

_ 1 

CL¬ 

OG 

O 

Mesvinian 

375,000  " 

400,000  “ 

Homo  heidel- 
bergensis 

52 

or 

«=c 

zr 

CC 

MINDEL 

wmmm> 

Mafflian 

t— 

«=a: 

rz> 

O' 

Reutelian 

(Prestian) 

475,000  “ 

1  1 
|4 

|  e 

> 

3 

GUNZ 

o 

500.000  “ 

1 

° 

■o 

UPPER 

PLIOCENE 

— 

Pithecanthropus 
erectus  (in  Java) 
Possibly  this  or  a 

ir 

J 

MIDDLE 

PLIOCENE 

(Kentian) 

similar  animal 
lived  in  Europe 
and  was 
responsible  for 
the  Eoliths 

LOWER 

PLIOCENE 

h- 

>- 

UPPER 

MIOCENE 

(Puy  Cournyan) 

QC 

-< 

MIDDLE 

MIOCENE 

(Cantalian) 

o 

Dryopithecus 

Dinotherium 

1 — 

CC 

LOWER 

MIOCENE 

UJ 

1— 

OLIGOCENE 

(Thenaysian) 

(Boncellian) 

UPPER 

EOCENE 

' 


/ 


/ 


EUROPEAN  PREHISTORY 


130 


32.  The  Eolithic  Age ;  Characteristics  of  Eoliths. — It 
is  impossible  to  believe  that  even  the  crudest  of  the  typi¬ 
cal  stone  tools  were  invented  all  at  once ;  that  at  a  defi¬ 
nite  time  men  learned  all  at  once  to  shape  a  piece  of 
flint  into  the  form  of  a  definite  tool,  the  use  of  which 
they  were  at  once  capable.  Rather  is  it  necessary  to  pos¬ 
tulate  a  long  period  of  time  during  which  flints  and 
other  stones  were  used  for  such  natural  actions  as  pry¬ 
ing,  striking,  and  even  cutting,  as  aids  for  the  naked 
hand  in  the  execution  of  their  work.  To  this  period  of 
unknown  limits,  extending  back  to  the  earliest  beings 
which  could  in  any  sense  be  called  “Men,”  there  has 
been  given  the  name  Eolithic ,  the  Dawning  Stone  Age, 
and  to  the  stones  thus  used  but  not  purposely  shaped, 
the  term  eoliths. 

It  must  be  conceded  that  any  use  of  a  stone  that  in¬ 
volves  hitting  it  against  other  hard  objects  would,  if  suf¬ 
ficiently  strenuous,  cause  it  to  be  broken  or  cracked ;  it  is 
further  to  be  supposed  that  the  effects  of  such  treat¬ 
ment  might  be  different  from  the  effects  produced  by  in¬ 
animate  forces,  like  the  jostling  of  stones  in  a  rapid 
brook,  the  scraping  of  pebbles  imbedded  in  the  bottom 
of  a  glacier,  or  the  action  of  waves  on  the  shingle.  These 
and  other  special  effects  geologists  universally  profess 
to  be  able  to  differentiate;  it  would  thus  be  conceivable 
that  stones  used  by  human  hands,  and  thus  marked  by 
numerous  blows  received  during  such  usage,  would  have 

ideas,  and  not  very  different  from  his  later  conclusions.  In  his 
latest  papers  Obermeier  considers  the  Mousterian  Period  as 
continuing  in  part  beyond  the  Warm  Ice,  while  Boule,  without 
making  the  Mousterian  so  recent,  makes  the  Solutrean  and 
Magdalenian  both  post-glacial,  the  former  occurring  in  the 
ice  free  interval  after  the  retreat  of  the  Wurm.  and  the  latter 
experiencing  the  glacial  conditions  of  the  Buhl  and  Gschnitz. 


140 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


sufficiently  definite  characteristics  to  allow  their  past 
experience  to  be  also  learned. 

The  use  of  flint  for  a  tool  or  weapon,  wherever  any¬ 
thing  was  to  be  cut,  for  instance,  would  continually  rec¬ 
ommend  its  virtues  in  this  particular  to  the  naked  feet 
of  early  man,  and  the  picking  up  of  such  a  flake  after 
it  had  inflicted  a  deep  cut  on  a  man’s  sole,  and  turning 
it  to  use  in  cutting  something  else,  would  be  but  a  short 
step  even  at  the  first.  It  would  then  be  conceivable  that 
a  particular  flake  would  be  more  easily  and  naturally 
handled  in  one  way  than  in  any  other,  leading  to  its 
being  more  usually  taken  into  the  hand  in  a  definite 
manner.  The  part  covered  by  the  hand  would  thus  be 
more  protected  while  the  blows  would  fall  oftener  upon 
the  other  portions,  and  if  a  second  user  were  to  attempt 
to  work  with  the  same  piece  he  also  would  handle  the 
piece  in  the  same  way,  so  that  eventually  one  part  would 
become  well  battered  up,  while  the  other  part  would  re¬ 
main  smooth.  This  would  naturally  divide  the  entire 
tool,  especially  one  repeatedly  used,  into  two  parts,  the 
manubrium  or  handle,  and  the  percussion  or  blade,  the 
differentiation  naturally  following  the  use  of  the  piece, 
entirely  without  conscious  attempt  at  shaping  it  for  any 
purpose.  (Fig.  27.)  Furthermore,  if  a  flint  nodule  were 
found  too  large  to  be  conveniently  employed,  it  would 
easily  be  shivered  into  several  more  practical  pieces 
for  use  by  hurling  it  down  upon  another  larger  rock, 
an  action  that  would  not  demand  much  special  intel¬ 
ligence,  or  might  be  the  spontaneous  result  of  drop¬ 
ping  a  piece  that  was  found  unsuitable  after  being 
taken  up. 

Certain  European  localities  have  become  noted  for  the 


EUROPEAN  PREHISTORY 


141 


occurrence  of  more  or  less  typical  eoliths,  and  a  few 
enthusiastic  prehistorians  have  not  only  found  there 
single  tools,  with  manubrium  and  percussion,  but  have 
also  discovered  large  masses  shivered  in  pieces  by  being 
thrown  in  the  manner  described,  or  those  from  which 


Fig.  27. — Manner  of  holding  an  eolith.  The  manubrium  is  the  part  most  convenient 
to  hold  in  the  hand.  This  part  is  covered  by  the  palm  and  fingers,  and  is  thus 
protected  from  injury,  whhe  the  tool  is  being  used.  On  the  other  hand  the 
exposed  part,  or  percussion,  being  repeatedly  struck,  is  thus  chipped  and 
battered.  (After  Forrer.) 


flakes  have  been  struck  for  the  getting  of  smaller  pieces. 
In  fact,  considerable  discredit  has  been  given  to  the  whole 
theory  of  eoliths  by  the  extravagant  claims  of  their  sup¬ 
porters,  who  not  only  see  in  them  a  marked  degree  of 
differentiation,  but  find  them  in  sites  that  have  origi- 


142 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


nated  too  far  in  the  past  to  have  been  possibly  the  work 
of  creatures  sufficiently  man-like  to  have  used  them. 
Thus  Rutot,  the  Belgian,  has  established  eolithic  periods 
like  the  Mesvinian,  the  Mafflian,  and  the  Reutelian  which 


Fig.  28. — Representative  Eoliths:  (a)  Typical  form,  with  definite  manubrium  and 
percussion.  From  the  locality  St.  Prest.  (After  Forrer.)  (b)  Eolith;  Mes¬ 
vinian  deposit.  (After  Rutot.)  (c)  Eolith;  Mafflian  deposit.  (After  Rutot.) 
(d)  Pseudo-eolith,  formed  as  the  result  of  pressure  exerted  by  adjacent  rock- 
masses.  From  the  Oligocene  locality  of  Boncelles.  (After  Verworn.) 


EUROPEAN  PREHISTORY 


143 


take  us  well  back  before  the  Mindel  Ice,  but,  not  con¬ 
tent  with  these,  which  are  more  or  less  probable,  speaks 
of  the  Cantalian,  a  site  in  the  Middle  Miocene,  and  even 
of  the  Thenaysian,  and  the  Boncellian,  which  are  Oligo- 
cene,  before  the  appearance  of  higher  primates.  The 
Cantalian,  for  example,  is  based  upon  flints  occurring 
in  the  lava  of  the  Miocene  volcano  of  Cantal,  in  France, 
which  has  been  styled  “an  eolithic  Pompeii.”  This  site 
lay  originally  upon  the  sands  of  a  gently  flowing  river, 
in  a  luxuriant  semi-tropical  forest.  A  very  rich  fossil 
flora  gave  evidence,  not  only  of  firs,  spruces  and  larches, 
of  oaks,  beeches  and  elms,  but  of  the  hickory  and  sassa¬ 
fras,  now  confined  to  the  Western  Hemisphere,  as  well 
as  of  the  laurel  and  the  bread-fruit  tree.  Here  lived  the 
three-toed  horse,  Hipparion ,  the  immediate  ancestor  of 
the  elephant,  Dinotlierium,  and  the  Mastodon,  later  to 
leave  the  Eastern  Hemisphere  forever.  No  bones  of 
man  or  related  forms  are  known  from  the  site,  but  the 
sands  are  plentifully  strewn  with  flints,  in  which  Rutot 
sees  typical  eoliths  of  several  sorts.  It  was  at  this  time, 
the  Middle  Miocene,  that  the  volcano  of  Cantal  burst  into 
activity,  and  covered  the  entire  region  with  a  layer  of 
lava.  (Fig.  28.) 

It  is  claims  like  this,  in  which  enthusiasts  have  seen 
true  eoliths  in  Miocene  times,  that  are  apt  to  throw  dis¬ 
credit  upon  the  entire  “eolithic  theory,”  as  some  wish 
to  have  it  called.  Whatever  we  may  think  of  the  pos¬ 
sibility  of  human  or  quasi-human  activity  at  so  an¬ 
cient  a  date,  it  must  be  assumed  that  the  first  human 
users  of  flints  employed  them  in  a  crude,  unelabo¬ 
rated  form,  without  intentional  shaping,  but  whether 
it  is  always  possible  to  detect  this  use,  and  distingush 


144 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


it  in  all  cases  as  produced  through  human  agency,  is 
doubtful.1 

33.  The  Users  of  the  Eoliths. — While  the  claims  of 
the  extreme  advocates  of  the  theory  of  eoliths  may  prove 
excessive ;  while  the  assumption  of  human  intelligence 
as  far  back  as  the  Oligocene,  or  even  the  Miocene,  must 
be  looked  upon  with  suspicion ;  the  later  eoliths  of  Plio¬ 
cene  age,  or  after,  may  be  generally  conceded  as  marked 
by  use,  that  is,  as  artifacts .  They  have  been  held  in 
hands  like  ours,  which  have  shielded  a  part  of  the  sur¬ 
face  while  striking  chips  from  other  parts  of  the  surface 
in  the  accomplishment  of  certain  intelligent  aims.  But 
whose  were  those  hands'?  Were  they  those  of  an  intelli¬ 
gent  ape ;  of  an  extremely  low  type  of  man ;  or  of  some 
form  intermediate  between  the  two?  Have  any  bones 
or  bone  fragments  of  these  animals,  definitely  associated 
with  the  eoliths,  and  in  contemporaneous  deposits,  been 
found ;  and  if  found,  what  light  do  they  throw  upon  the 
problem  ? 

The  Miocene  deposits  of  Europe  have  yielded  numer¬ 
ous  fragments  of  an  anthropoid  ape,  Dryopithecus,  which 
gets  its  name  “oak-ape”  from  the  impressions  of  oak 
leaves  found  with  the  fragmentary  jaw  from  which  the 
species  was  named.  This  specimen  was  brought  to  light 
at  St.  Gaudens,  in  southern  France,  in  1856,  but  other 
remains  of  presumably  the  same  species  have  been  found 
in  other  parts  of  western  Europe,  notably  a  femur  (at 

1  An  excellent  review  of  the  indications  of  the  existence  of  an 
Eolithic  Age  in  Europe  is  given  by  George  Grant  MacCurdy  in 
the  American  Anthropologist  for  July-Sept.,  1905.  pp.  425-479, 
with  an  extensive  bibliography.  This  article  deals  sympathe¬ 
tically  with  what  many  anthropologists  still  call  the  “theory  of 
eoliths,’’  and  includes  the  detailed  classification  of  the  Eolithic 
Age,  as  subdivided  by  the  Belgium  enthusiast,  Rutot. 


EUROPEAN  PREHISTORY 


145 


first  named  Paedopithex  rhenanus ),  found  at  Eppel- 
sheim,  on  the  Rhine.  This  ape,  well  suited  to  the  semi- 
tropical  forests  of  the  mid-Miocene  of  Europe,  was  much 
like  the  gibbons  of  the  East  Indies,  and  could  by  no  possi¬ 
bility  have  been  responsible  for  the  contemporary  eoliths. 

Certain  teeth  from  a  Pliocene  deposit  in  the  Swabian 
Alps,  the  “Bohnerz,”  seem  considerably  more  human 
than  those  from  the  Dryopithecus  jaw;  other  equally 
suspicious  teeth  have  been  found  at  Taubach,  near 
Weimar,  and  in  the  Shipka  cavern  in  Moravia.1  These 
have  all  been  the  subject  of  much  serious  controversy, 
but  it  is  now  fairly  well  established  that  the  Shipka 
teeth,  which  were  in  a  small  fragment  of  jaw,  were  much 
later  than  the  Pliocene,  and  belonged  to  a  child  of  the 
Neandertal  race  of  men ;  and  that  the  teeth  from  Tau¬ 
bach,  also  Pleistocene,  instead  of  Pliocene,  were  those 
of  the  large  European  Pan  vetus,  from  the  Third  Gla¬ 
cial  Period. 

The  Bohnerz  teeth,  on  the  other  hand,  are  really  Plio¬ 
cene,  and  although  the  discoverer,  Branco,  referred  them 
to  Dryopithecus,  they  seem  more  human.  If  they  really 
are  so,  and  are  not  those  of  some  large  ape,  like  the 
teeth  from  Taubach,  they  establish  the  presence  in  Ger¬ 
many  previous  to  the  final  coming  on  of  the  ice,  of  a 
form  sufficiently  human  to  have  used  the  eoliths.  Al¬ 
though  matters  are  still  in  an  undetermined  state  con¬ 
cerning  these,  they  are  likely  to  be  soon  better  under¬ 
stood,  as  has  so  frequently  happened,  in  the  light  of 
future  finds  in  this  field. 

1  Branco,  W.  1898.  “Die  menschenahnlichen  Zahne  aus  dem 
Bohnerz  der  schwabischen  Alb.”  Jahresliefte  des  Vereins  fur 
vaterl.  N aturkunde  in  Wurttemberg , 


116 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


Although  the  European  Pliocene  gives  but  slight 
information  concerning  its  contemporary  man-like  forms, 
and  furnishes  us  with  merely  a  gibbon  and  a  possible 
chimpanzee,  together  with  a  bare  suggestion  of  some 
intermediate  form  between  them  and  man,  the  remains 
of  a  definite  man-ape,  or  ape-man,  contemporary  with 
the  European  Pliocene,  have  been  found  in  the  island 
of  Java,  and  it  is  not  too  great  a  strain  upon  our  cred¬ 
ulity  to  believe  that  either  this  form  or  a  nearly  re¬ 
lated  animal  lived  in  Europe.  This  Javan  animal  or 
man  was  found  in  1891-2  by  a  Dutch  military  surgeon, 
Eugen  Dubois,  and  named  Pithecanthropus  erectus,  the 
erect  ape-man.  The  remains  discovered  consisted  of  a 
cranium,  a  femur,  and  several  teeth,  but  they  are  pre¬ 
cisely  the  parts  most  needed  for  description  and  compari¬ 
son.  This  creature,  with  a  low,  retreating  forehead, 
about  intermediate  between  that  of  the  highest  apes  and 
the  lowest  man,  and  with  a  projecting  muzzle  or  snout, 
also  intermediate  in  degree  between  that  of  the  apes 
and  man,  walked  perfectly  erect  upon  long,  straight  legs, 
exhibiting  human  proportions.  The  cranial  capacity  of 
a  gorilla  rarely  exceeds  500  cubic  centimeters;  that  of 
the  lowest  type  of  modern  man  averages  about  1200, 
and  that  of  Pithecanthropus  is  estimated  at  800.  The 
femur  measures  in  length  455  millimeters,  the  average 
length  for  a  man  of  1680mm  (5  ft.  5 24"),  and,  although 
the  other  bones  are  not  known,  we  may  assume  about 
this  height  for  the  specimen  found.  From  the  cranial 
piece,  which  is  complete  as  far  in  front  as  the  eye-sock¬ 
ets,  and  from  the  teeth,  the  proportions  of  which  gave 
the  data  for  the  dental  arch,  the  entire  skull  wTas  recon¬ 
structed  by  Dr.  Dubois,  and  upon  this  as  a  basis  a  face 


EUROPEAN  PREHISTORY 


147 


was  moulded  by  Dr.  J.  II.  McGregor,  of  Columbia  Uni¬ 
versity.  This  reconstruction,  moulded  upon  the  skull 
with  careful  attention  to  all  anatomical  details,  gives  a 
head  and  face  curiously  intermediate  between  one  of  the 
higher  man-like  apes  and  a  low  type  of  man ;  ridges 
project  above  the  eyes,  the  cheek  bones  are  broad  and 
high,  the  nose  is  flat  and  extremely  broad,  and  the  mouth 
is  very  large.  An  ape’s  lips  are  always  thin,  without 
that  outward  rolling  of  the  mucous  surface  so  charac¬ 
teristic  of  man,  especially  of  negroes ;  the  lips  of  the 
reconstruction  show  a  slight  tendency  to  roll  outwards, 
and  are  held  a  little  open,  disclosing  the  large  simian 
teeth,  with  long  canines.  The  head  is  carried  far  for¬ 
ward,  and  the  neck  muscles  are  so  thick  that  there  is 
scarcely  any  incurving  at  the  nape.  This  gives  the 
profile  view  of  the  restoration  a  much  more  ape-like 
appearance  than  the  front  view  possesses. 

Naturally  such  a  reconstruction,  resting  as  it  does  upon 
a  restored  skull,  with  few  data  for  the  face,  and  with 
none  for  such  soft  parts  as  nose  and  lips,  ears  and  hair, 
must  be  at  best  a  recapitulation  of  scientific  conclusions, 
yet,  considered  as  such,  it  is  of  value  in  the  same  way 
as  is  a  working  hypothesis,  a  structure  built  up  from  the 
material  as  far  as  known,  and  expected  to  be  modified 
here  and  there,  and  to  be  eventually  remodeled,  accord¬ 
ing  to  data  that  may  later  present  themselves.  Thus 
viewed,  a  reconstruction  like  this,  which  expresses  every 
detail  that  is  known  or  can  be  deduced  from  what  is 
known,  becomes  even  to  the  specialist  a  work  of  great 
value ;  and  for  those  who  are  not  professional  anato¬ 
mists,  and  who  have  therefore  not  the  power  of  inter¬ 
preting  fragments,  it  furnishes  a  translation  from 


148 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


scientific  deductions  into  plastic  form,  easily  understood 

by  all. 

34.  The  Period  of  Strepy ;  the  Transition  to  the  Pa¬ 
leolithic. — While  during  the  long  ages  that  stretch  be¬ 
tween  Cantal  and  Mesvin,  if  we  may  believe  the  testi¬ 
mony  of  eoliths,  there  was  no  perceptible  advance  in 
human  activity,  important  changes  took  place  in  the  as¬ 
sociated  animals.  This  is  especially  well  seen  in  the 
succession  of  huge  Proboscidians,  adapted  to  the  various 
changes  of  climate  to  which  the  continent  was  subjected, 
and  often  found  in  close  association  with  the  remains 
of  human  activity.  Throughout  the  Miocene  this  group 
of  animals  was  represented  by  the  Dinotherwm,  not  yet 
an  elephant,  but  strongly  suggestive  of  that  later  special¬ 
ization.  This  form  gave  place  in  the  Pliocene  to  the 
first  of  the  genuine  elephants,  Elephas  meridionalis, 
fitted  to  a  warm  climate,  and  which  in  its  turn  yielded 
to  another  species,  Elephas  antiquus,  at  about  the  time 
of  the  Mindel-Riss  Interglacial  Period.  Bones  of  this 
latter  animal,  were  found  together  with  the  eoliths  of 
the  station  at  Mesvin,  in  Belgium.1  But  these  two 
southern  animals  disappeared  at  the  advance  of  the  Piss 
Ice  and  there  came  in  their  stead  the  mammoth,  Ele¬ 
phas  primigenius,  destined  to  be  long  the  companion,  if 
not  the  actual  friend,  of  early  man ;  to  furnish  him 
with  ivory  for  the  manufacture  of  valuable  tools,  and 
to  serve  as  a  favorite  model  for  his  growing  artistic 
talent.  And  with  the  advent  of  this  huge  associate  of 
man,  with  is  rolling  tusks  and  long  masses  of  coarse  hair, 
there  came  into  the  long  Eolithic  night  the  first  ray  of 

1  Opened  lip  in  a  railway  cutting  between  Mons  and  Har- 
mignies. 


EUROPEAN  PREHISTORY 


149 


dawn,  the  first  sign  of  the  action  of  a  really  human  in¬ 
telligence. 

This  advance  consisted  of  nothing  more  than  a  slight 
change  in  the  stone  artifacts  found  in  the  deposits  of 
the  period ;  the  first  crude  attempts  at  shaping  the 
pieces  in  such  a  way  as  to  be  better  suited  to  their  pur¬ 
pose.  The  earliest  site  at  which  such  flints  have  been 
found  is  at  Strepy,  in  Belgium,  from  which  the  period 
itself,  immediately  following  the  Mesvinian,  is  designated 
as  the  Strepyan ;  and  furthermore,  as  the  flints,  thus 
crudely  shaped,  are  no  longer  typical  eoliths,  yet  too 
slightly  worked  to  be  called  paleoliths,  the  term  archeo- 
litlis  has  been  proposed  for  them,  and  the  Strepyan  pe¬ 
riod,  with  perhaps  others  to  be  established  later,  may  be 
made  to  constitute  an  Archeolithic  Age,  inserted  be¬ 
tween  the  Eolithic  and  the  Paleolithic.  The  date  of  this 
initial  activity  in  the  manufacture  of  tools  is  usually 
placed  chronologically  during  the  third  great  glacial 
advance,  that  of  the  Riss  Ice,  and  the  men  of  Strepy 
must  have  inhabited  the  extensive  regions  which  escaped 
glaciation,  running  up  through  Europe  in  several  places. 

Thus  at  this  time,  at  a  period  seemingly  most  unfa¬ 
vorable  for  advance,  the  first  step  was  taken  along  the 
upward  road  leading  beyond  the  eoliths  in  the  direction 
of  the  improvement  of  existing  conditions.  This  step 
was  not  a  great  one.  Only  a  specialist  could  perceive  it. 
None  but  an  expert,  working  over  a  collection  of  primi¬ 
tive  stone  implements  could  point  out  the  difference  be¬ 
tween  the  typical  eoliths  and  one  which  had  been 
slightly  improved,  yet  the  latter,  and  the  latter  only, 
shows  the  results  of  impacts  purposely  struck  upon 
the  stone ,  not  incident  to  the  use  to  which  it  was  put , 


150 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


but  dealt  for  the  sake  of  improving  the  shape  of  the 
tool  and  fitting  it  better  for  its  use. 

Poor  enough  were  these  attempts,  confined  to  the  strik¬ 
ing  oh  an  awkward  corner  or  inconvenient  projection, 
yet  these  very  acts  inaugurated  a  revolution,  not  merely 
in  tool  making,  but  in  ethics  as  well.  A  stone  thus 
elaborated  and  improved  became  straightway  unlike 
others.  It  possessed  an  intrinsic  value  greater  than 
that  of  the  unelaborated  stones.  It  belonged  to  the  man 
who  had  thus  shaped  it.  It  was  his  personal  possession. 
No  longer  now  is  the  stone  hurled  aside  when  once  the 
immediate  result  is  accomplished.  It  has  shown  itself 
to  be  better  fitted  for  its  purpose  than  other  stones,  and 
is  thus  retained  by  the  artificer  as  a  thing  of  special 
value.  He  takes  it  with  him  to  his  rude  rock-shelter, 
and  hides  it  in  the  moss,  or  perhaps  among  the 
dry  leaves  that  form  his  bed.  On  leaving  the  cave  at 
sunrise  he  takes  it  with  him,  and  may  eventually  elabo¬ 
rate  some  device  whereby  it  may  be  attached  to  his 
body,  and  leave  his  hands  and  arms  free  for  action. 

Thus  the  first  ideas  of  values,  of  the  rights  of  pos¬ 
session,  of  individual  property — the  initial  acts  in  the 
long  drama  of  man-making — developed  spontaneously  in 
that  lonely  valley  where  the  glaciers  of  the  Riss  Ice 
groaned  and  crashed.  Feebly  developed  along  the  line 
of  intelligent  purpose  as  that  animal  brain  must  have 
been,  it  has  yet  devised  this  first  step  toward  civiliza¬ 
tion  ;  it  has  executed  a  definite  purpose  with  those  hairy 
Simian  fingers ;  it  has  made  its  first  real  possession.  And 
with  this  comes  a  new  experience :  the  burden  of  prop¬ 
erty.  Henceforth  this  tool  must  be  kept ;  looked  after ; 
if  need  be,  it  must  be  fought  for.  This  first  forward  step 


EUROPEAN  PREHISTORY 


151 


has  become  not  merely  an  added  power ;  it  has  become  an 
encroachment  upon  its  animal  freedom,  with  its  unre¬ 
strained  joys  and  its  easily  forgotten  sorrows.  The  de¬ 
viser  of  the  first  shaped  tool  has  become,  for  better  or 
for  worse,  a  man ;  he  has  tasted  of  the  fruit  of  the  tree 
of  knowledge,  and  the  doors  are  shut  forever  between 
him  and  his  animal  Paradise.1 

It  must  not  be  supposed  from  the  above  that  this  first 
step,  so  vitally  important  for  all  subsequent  develop¬ 
ment,  took  place  at  one  spot  only,  and  that  the  site  at 
Strepy  marks  the  sole  place  where  this  initial  discovery 
was  made.  With  the  utter  lack  of  transportation,  or 
even  of  intercommunication,  between  adjacent  commu¬ 
nities,  such  a  discovery  would  be  shared  at  best  by  the 
members  of  a  single  family  or  between  other  intimately 
associated  individuals,  and  it  would  be  necessary  for 
exactly  similar  discoveries  to  have  been  made,  independ- 

1  Cf.  the  picture  by  Thomas  Carlyle  in  “Sartor  Resartus,” 
Chap.  V:  “Miserable,  indeed  .  .  .  was  the  condition  of  the 

Aboriginal  Savage,  glaring  fiercely  from  under  his  fleece  of  hair, 
which  with  the  beard  reached  down  to  his  loins,  and  hung  round 
him  like  a  matted  cloak  ;  the  rest  of  his  body  sheeted  in  its  thick 
natural  fell.  He  loitered  in  the  sunny  glades  of  the  forest,  living 
on  wild  fruits ;  or,  as  the  ancient  Caledonian,  squatted  himself 
in  morasses,  lurking  for  his  bestial  or  human  prey ;  without  im¬ 
plements,  without  arms,  save  the  ball  of  heavy  Flint,  to  which, 
that  his  sole  possession  and  defense  might  not  be  lost,  he  had 
attached  a  long  cord  of  plaited  thongs ;  thereby  recovering  as 
well  as  hurling  it  with  deadly  unerring  skill.”  While  all  the 
details  of  this  picture  can  hardly  stand  the  criticism  of  modern 
anthropology,  the  general  spirit  is  quite  modern,  and  makes  it 
hard  to  believe  that  this  passage  was  written,  not  only  long  be¬ 
fore  the  discovery  of  eoliths,  but  twenty-five  years  previous  to 
the  discovery  of  the  human  remains  in  the  Neandertal  cavern, 
and  at  the  very  time  when  the  attempts  of  poor  Boucher  de 
Parthes  to  prove  a  human  agency  in  the  shaping  of  the  paleo- 
liths  in  the  gravel  of  the  Somme  valley  were  meeting  with  noth¬ 
ing  but  abuse  and  ridicule  at  the  hands  of  the  savants  of  the  day. 


152 


MAN'S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


ently,  over  and  over  again  by  different  men,  all  through 
this  time,  perhaps  even  through  this  entire  Ice  epoch, 
before  this  Strepyan  culture  had  become  universal,  even 
in  Western  Europe. 

Types  of  artifacts,  precisely  similar  to  the  ones  found 
at  Strepy,  have  recently  been  recognized  among  the 
gravel  deposits  of  the  river  Somme,  where  are  found  also 
the  typical  implements  of  the  Chellean  and  Acheulian 
Period,  but  distinct  from,  and  older  than,  either.  Upon 
the  basis  of  these  deposits,  with  their  characteristic  arti¬ 
facts  of  the  crudest  nature,  Commont  has  recently  estab¬ 
lished  his  Pre-Chellean  Period,  but  a  comparison  of  the 
Pre-Chellean  artifacts,  with  those  from  the  deposits  of 
Strepy  show  the  two  to  have  been  the  same.  The  glim¬ 
merings  of  the  light  that  characterized  the  deposits  at 
Strepy  are  thus  seen  to  have  been  spread  over  the  neigh¬ 
boring  countries  at  about  the  same  time,  and  through¬ 
out  western  Euorpe  preparations  were  slowly  being 

% 

made  for  the  more  definitely  formed  artifacts  of  the 
early  Paleolithic. 

As  for  the  bodily  appearance  of  the  creatures  who 
made  this  advance,  and  by  so  doing  first  earned  the  right 
to  be  called  “Men,”  we  have,  in  the  testimony  already 
presented  in  the  form  of  actual  bones,  two  -possible  can¬ 
didates.  One  of  these  is  the  Heidelberg  Jaw;  the  other 
consists  of  the  Piltdown  cranial  fragments.  The  first, 
practically  the  jaw  of  an  ape,  but  with  teeth  of  the 
human  type,  suggests  the  Neandertal  man  of  later  times, 
and  is  generally  considered  the  direct  ancestor  of  that 
type,  but  a  little  less  human.  This  Heidelberg  man  was 
undoubtedly  an  eolith  user,  and  was  perhaps  responsible 
for  the  contemporary  Mesvinian  artifacts.  The  second, 


EUROPEAN  PREHISTORY 


153 


from  Piltdown  in  Sussex,  comes  apparently  from  the 
time  of  the  Riss  Glaciation,  contemporary  with  Strepy, 
and  was  fonnd  in  close  connection  with  flints  of  the 
Strepyan  type. 

The  skull  fragments,  of  which  the  Piltdown  remains 
consist,  are  unusually  thick,  but  otherwise  indicate  a 
cranium,  which,  though  of  a  low  type,  is  considerably 
more  like  that  of  modern  man  than  like  that  of  the 
Heidelberg-Neandertal  race.  A  jaw,  found  with  the 
other  fragments,  and  supposed  at  first  to  be  a  part  of 
the  same  individual,  is  thought  by  many  to  be  that 
of  a  chimpanzee  (Pan  vetus),  living  in  England  at  the 
same  time ;  but  the  English  specialists,  who  have  had 
the  advantage  of  working  over  the  original  fragments, 
are  firmly  of  the  opinion  that  both  the  jaw  and  the 
cranial  fragments  belong  together. 

Perhaps,  during  the  last  part  of  the  Eolithic  Age,  and 
also  during  the  Archeolithic,  there  lived  two  human 
types.  One  had  a  low  cranial  vault,  heavy  ridges  over 
the  eyes,  and  no  chin,  the  direct  ancestor  of  the  Nean- 
dertal  race ;  the  other  was  suggestive  of  the  modern 
type  of  man,  without  accentuated  brow  ridges,  and  pos¬ 
sessed  a  fairly  high  cranial  vault,  yet  lower  in  cranium 
and  brain  than  any  recent  race.  During  this  time,  also, 
the  first  improvements  of  the  long  used  eoliths  may  have 
appeared.  More  than  this  we  cannot  as  yet  say,  nor  have 
we  basis  for  even  hypotheses.  This  is  a  definite  hiatus 
in  our  past  history,  to  fill  which  we  must  wait  for  more 
data. 

35.  Early  Paleolithic  Times;  the  Chellean  Period .* — 

1  The  Chellean  Period  received  its  name  from  the  town  of 
Chelles  (Depte.  Seine-et-Marne),  France,  15  kilometers  east  of 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


154 

The  step  inaugurated  during  the  epoch  of  the  Riss  Ice, 
that  of  shaping  a  tool  to  suit  its  purpose  better,  was  soon 
to  bear  fruit,  as  is  seen  in  the  artifacts  of  the  times  im¬ 
mediately  succeeding  the  retreat  of  the  Riss  glaciation, 
for  here  we  find  the  first  definitely  shaped  tool ,  at  least 
from  our  standpoint — a  moderately  large  implement  pos¬ 
sessing  a  crude  sort  of  blade  with  a  rough  zigzag  edge. 

In  proportion  to  the  long  ages  of  the  Eolithic,  the 
advance  from  the  first  shaping  of  a  flint  to  the  produc¬ 
tion  of  even  this  crude  implement  is  very  rapid,  and 
may  suggest  the  appearance  by  a  migration  of  some 
more  intelligent  being  than  has  hitherto  inhabited  Eu¬ 
rope  ;  yet  the  transition  from  the  archeoliths  of  the 
Strepyan  to  so  primitive  a  tool  as  the  “Chelles  axe”  is 
after  all  a  slight  one,  and  after  the  idea  of  shaping  a 
flint  is  once  inaugurated  the  improvement  could  be  easily 
effected. 

The  most  typical  Chellean  artifact  is  the  hand-axe,  or 
“coup-de-poing,”  intended  to  be  held  in  the  hand,  i.  e., 
used  without  a  handle.  One  end  is  designed  to  be 
grasped,  and  is  therefore  left  unchipped,  and  frequently 
retains  the  original  crust  characteristic  of  a  natural 
Hint  nodule  Beyond  this  comes  the  blade,  which  is  en¬ 
tirely  covered  by  concavities  caused  by  rude  flaking,  and 
is  thus  wholly  artificial.  Around  this  portion  runs  a 
sharp  edge,  which  is  a  pronounced  zigzag,  caused  by  the 
striking  off  of  large  flakes  from  the  two  sides  alternately . 
1  his  zigzag  edge  is  the  special  characteristic  of  a  Chelles 


1  uris,  where  the  artifacts  occur  in  the  old  river  terrace  gravels.; 
I  nr  similar  deposits,  undoubtedly  contemporaneous  with  these, 
have  been  found  in  other  parts  of  Europe,  and  have  yielded 
precisely  similar  implements. 


EUROPEAN  PREHISTORY 


axe,  as  the  workmen  of  that  period  found  no  wa>  of5 
making  the  edge  straight  (Fig.  29).  An  examination 


Fig.  29.— Two  views,  side  and  edge,  of  a  typical  Chellean  axe,  a  “Coup-dc- 
Poing,”  intended  to  be  used  in  the  bare  hand,  without  handle.  For  this  pur¬ 
pose  the  lower  end  is  thick,  and  often  still  bears  the  original  smooth  crust, 
while  otherwise  the  entire  surface  is  elaborated,  i.e.,  covered  with  artificial 
flakes.  Note  especially  the  zigzag  edge,  caused  by  large  flakes,  struck  off 
alternately  from  the  two  sides.  This  ;s  the  most  striking  type  of  Chellean 
workshops,  as  the  men  of  this  time  had  not  yet  learned  to  make  a  straight 
edge.  (From  a  specimen  in  the  Smith  College  Collection.  One-half  natural 
size.) 

of  many  specimens  with  a  view  to  finding  possible  indica¬ 
tions  that  these  axes  were  ever  mounted  in  a  handle  has 
resulted  negatively,  and  we  are  led  to  the  conclusion  that 
no  such  improvement  as  a  handle  had  as  yet  appeared. 


156 


MAX'S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


Aside  from  these  characteristic  axes,  Chellean  de¬ 
posits  furnish  no  other  artifacts  that  may  be  definitely 
termed  “paleoliths,”  but  yield  numerous  flints  of  arch- 
eolithic  and  eolithic  types,  which  seem  also  to  have  still 
been  in  common  use.  This  occurrence  of  implements  of 
cruder  form  with  those  of  more  finished  workmanship 
is  always  usual  in  deposits  of  all  ages,  and  among  such 
primitive  modern  peoples  as  the  Australians,  archeoliths 
and  even  eoliths  may  be  found  still  in  use. 

Chellean  eoliths,  however,  show  a  slightly  greater  de¬ 
gree  of  differentiation  than  those  found  in  true  eolithic 
deposits,  and  among  them  occur  small  sharp  splinters, 
apparently  used  as  points,  stuck  into  sticks,  and  used 
as  javelins  or  spears,  crude  forms  of  missile  weapons. 
Thus  the  arrow  may  be  said  to  have  much  antedated  the 
bow,  for  which  it  inevitably  prepared  the  way,  since  its 
use  as  a  hand  javelin  would  lead  to  some  mechanical 
method  of  propulsion.  There  thus  developed  various 
types  of  throwing-sticks,  which  appeared  during  the 
next  two  or  three  periods.  The  bow,  based  on  a  differ¬ 
ent  principle,  was  much  later,  almost  Neolithic  in  date. 

36.  Early  Paleolithic  Times;  the  Acheulian  Period. — 
The  flints  of  the  Acheluian  Period,  named  from  the  type 
locality  of  St.  Acheul,  in  the  valley  of  the  Somme,  in 
Northern  France,1  show  a  considerable  advance  in  sev¬ 
eral  directions.  An  axe  made  on  the  Chellean  model  as 

1  This  site  is  rendered  famous  for  all  time  as  the  scene  of  the 
labors  of  M.  Boucher  de  Perthes,  a  pioneer  in  European  pre¬ 
history,  who  worked  in  the  deposits  here  between  1S45  and 
1865,  and  whose  results  were  received  with  general  disbelief, 
for  a  recent  paper  on  the  same  locality,  giving  the  results  of 
new  excavations,  in  which  are  distinguished  the  deposits  of  the 
Pre-Cliellean,  Chellean,  and  Acheulian  Periods,  cf.  Commont,  in 
L'Antliropolor/ie ,  T.  19,  1908,  pp.  527-572. 


EUROPEAN  PREHISTORY 


157 


regards  form  and  size,  commonly  occurs,  but  shows  im¬ 
portant  differences  in  three  distinct  ways: 

(1)  The  entire  surface  is  rendered  smoother  by  the 
use  of  finer  flakes,  (2)  the  edge  has  become  straight,  and 


Fig.  30. — Two  ways  in  which  an  Acheulian  axe  may  have  been  mounted.  From 
methods  actually  in  use  among  primitive  people  at  the  present  time.  B. 
is  taken  from  Forrer,  and  represents  an  Australian  method. 

(3)  it  runs  around  the  entire  tool,  thus  rendering  it 
unlikely  that  it  could  have  ever  been  used  by  holding 
it  in  the  hand.  Naturally  no  handles,  which  were  un¬ 
doubtedly  of  wood,  or  wood  and  leather,  have  ever  been 
found,  but  several  possible  methods  may  be  suggested 


158 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


by  the  study  of  those  still  in  use  among  modern  primitive 
peoples,  some  of  which  are  suggested  here  in  Fig.  30.  In 
A  the  natural  angle  of  a  tree  limb  is  taken  into  account, 
and  the  flint  is  pushed  into  one  end,  probably  that  of 
the  larger  piece.  Every  blow  with  the  implement  tends 
to  wedge  the  flint  more  firmly  into  the  handle,  while  a 
tendency  to  split  is  counteracted  by  winding  the  wood, 
just  below  the  insertion  of  the  axe,  with  a  stout  thong  or 
sinew.  B,  after  Forrer,  shows  the  Australian  method 
for  hafting  an  axe  very  similar  to  the  Acheulian  type, 
and  still  used  by  them.  It  consists  essentially  of  a  pliant 
piece  of  wood  bent  in  the  form  of  a  loop  by  bending  it 
upon  itself,  and  perhaps  softened  by  boiling.  The  loop 
is  just  a  little  smaller  than  the  largest  width  of  the  flint. 

Aside  from  typical  Acheulian  axes,  various  other  types 
of  implements  occur,  showing  a  gradual  perfection  of  the 
paleolith.  The  idea  inaugurated  at  Strepv,  that  of  pur¬ 
posely  shaping  a  flint  to  a  given  use,  has  already  borne 
much  fruit,  and  the  intelligent  progress  of  early  human¬ 
ity,  and  the  gradual  precision  in  the  education  of  the 
muscles  of  the  arm  and  fingers,  are  marked  by  the  in¬ 
crease  in  the  number  of  forms  of  artifact  as  well  as  in 
the  better  workmanship  and  the  straighter  and  sharper 
edges. 

The  Acheulian  Period,  like  the  Chellean,  was  a  long  one. 
During  this  period  the  great  ice  sheet,  which  through¬ 
out  the  Chellean  was  confined  to  the  Far  North,  had  again 
slowly  advanced,  and  covered  the  Alps  and  other  high- 
lying  areas,  ushering  in  the  last  of  the  major  great  glacial 
advance,  that  of  the  Wurm  Ice.  The  users  of  the  flints, 
now  long  accustomed  to  life  in  the  open  air,  or  in  frail 
shelters  made  of  intertwined  branches,  began  to  betake 


Fig.  31. — Typical  Aeheulian  axe,  made  by  rather  large  and  coarse 
flaking,  but  with  the  edge  straight,  and  not  zigzag,  as  in  the 
earlier  forms.  As  this  figure  is  but  one  half  the  natural  size, 
it  is  seen  that  this  implement  is  rather  large.  (After  Obermeier, 
in  L’ Anthropologie.) 


160 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  TAST 


themselves  to  eaves  and  recesses  of  the  rocks,  or  shel¬ 
tered  themselves  from  the  north  winds  beneath  over¬ 
hanging  cliffs.  These  they  reinforced  by  skins  or  crude 
thatch,  the  abris-sous-roches  of  the  French  anthropolo¬ 
gists. 

This  change  of  climate  affected,  not  man  alone,  but  the 
entire  fauna.  The  Chellean  rhinoceros,  R.  mercki,  dis¬ 
appeared,  and  was  replaced  by  a  similar  beast,  Rhino¬ 
ceros  tichorhinus ,  whose  skin  was  clothed  with  a  thick 
wool.  Within  the  shelter  of  the  forest  were  found  the 
ancient  European  ox,  Bos  primigenius ,  and  the  great  elk, 
Cervus  megaceros.  Vast  herds  of  reindeer  were  soon  to 
come  down  from  the  north,  and  spread  out  over  the  frozen 
plains,  and  the  wooly  mammoth,  Elephus  primigenius , 
was  soon  to  present  himself  as  a  model  to  the  paleolithic 
artist. 

This  advent  of  northern  animals  formed  the  vanguard 
of  the  fourth  great  glaciation,  the  Wurm  Ice,  which,  ac¬ 
cording  to  Penck,  appeared  in  mid-Europe  about  forty 
thousands  years  ago,  and  lasted  some  twenty  thousand 
more.  With  its  retreat,  at  this  date,  comes  the  end  of  the 
Quaternary,  as  usually  considered,  but  still  after  this 
three  Pleistocene  glaciations  follow  in  succession,  so  that 
the  Middle  Paleolithic,  which  begins  with  the  Wurm  Ice 
and  extends  through  four  prehistoric  periods,  and  ends 
with  the  glaciation  of  the  Gschnitz,  was  characterized 
mainly  by  being  a  period  of  cold  climate.  For  man  it 
was  largely  a  period  of  cave  life,  and  of  hunting  arctic 
animals  over  the  steppes  and  frozen  bogs. 

Yet,  after  all,  with  all  its  disadvantages,  it  was  in  many 
respects  the  greatest  and  grandest  in  human  history,  for 
during  this  time  man  became  man,  endowed  with  arts 


EUROPEAN  PREHISTORY  161 

and  industries ;  he  had  killed  or  driven  forever  from 
Europe  the  worst  and  fiercest  of  the  carnivores,  his  most 
dangerous  enemy.  In  the  darkness  of  the  Wurm  Ice  he 
entered  the  eaves  with  his  Acheulian  axe  in  his  hand,  as 
yet  his  only  masterpiece ;  he  left  them  equipped  with 
numerous  sorts  of  implements,  of  stones,  of  bone,  of  ivory. 
He  had  learned  to  carve  bits  of  bone  or  ivory  into  the 
likeness  of  the  animals  with  which  he  was  familiar;  he 
had  learned  to  sketch  incised  lines  on  the  walls  of  his 
cave  giving  strikingly  accurate  outlines  of  the  wild  ox, 
the  reindeer,  the  mammoth,  and  the  horse,  and  he  had 
painted  them  in  lifelike  colors  by  means  of  variously 
colored  earths  and  powdered  stones.  He  had  acquitted 
himself  gloriously  throughout  his  long  ordeal  of  initia¬ 
tion,  and  after  the  final  retreat  of  the  last  general  ice 
sheet,  came  forth  into  his  full  manhood  upon  the  newly 
reclaimed  earth. 

37.  Middle  Paleolithic  Times;  the  Mousterian  Period . 
— This  first  of  the  four  periods  of  the  Middle  Paleolithic 
takes  its  name  from  the  caverns  of  Le  Moustier,  in  the 
valley  of  the  Vezere,  southern  France,  and  situated  a 
few  miles  above  the  little  village  of  Les  Eyzies  (Dor¬ 
dogne).  Here,  upon  a  slope  which  lies  in  terraces,  occur 
four  small  grottoes,  hardly  more  than  rock  shelters, 
placed  in  nearly  a  straight  line,  one  above  the  other.  Of 
these  the  uppermost  has  yielded  practically  nothing,  but 
the  others,  especially  the  lowermost  one,  contain  rich 
paleolithic  deposits.  The  implements  found  here  show, 
in  strict  accord  with  the  relative  age  of  the  layer  in  which 
each  occurs,  an  almost  unbroken  line  of  development,  be¬ 
ginning  with  those  of  the  late  Acheulian  Period ,  which 
are  the  same  as  those  of  the  same  period  elsewhere,  and 


162 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


continuing  throughout  the  succeeding  Mousterian  Pe¬ 
riod,  which  evidently  lasted  for  a  very  long  time.  Here 
they  developed  a  number  of  characteristic  types  of  im- 


Fig.  32. — Typical  Mousterian  hand-axe,  of  triangular  shape,  with  a 
straight  edge  which  has  been  retouched.  Two  thirds  natural  size. 
(After  Commont,  in  L’ Anthropologie.) 


plements  that  show  a  considerable  advance  on  the  Acheu- 
lian.  Thus,  while  the  Acheulian  type  of  axe  was  still  in 
use,  and  occurs  in  most  Mousterian  deposits,  this  lat- 


EUROPEAN  PREHISTORY 


103 


ter  period  developed  also  a  type  of  its  own,  the  Mous- 
terian  axe.  This  is  triangular  in  form,  rather  broad 
at  the  base,  which  is  left  in  an  unfinished  state,  while 
the  two  sides  and  the  point  are  sharpened  with  great 
care. 

A  second  type,  somewhat  similar  to  this,  but  smaller, 
is  the  Mousterian  point,  specimens  of  which  occur  in 
great  numbers  in  deposits  of  this  period.  These  points 
are  flattened  triangles  of  flint,  with  the  apex  and  the  two 
adjacent  edges  worked  down  by  very  fine  retouching  and 
carefully  elaborated,  while  the  base  is  left  rough.  These 
points  may  have  been  mounted  in  the  ends  of  sticks,  and 
perhaps  fastened  in  by  fibres  of  bast  which  could  be 
wound  tightly  around  the  end  of  the  shaft ;  the  weapons 
thus  made  could  serve  either  as  spears  or  javelins  to  be 
hurled  from  the  hand,  or  as  lances  or  daggers  to  be  held 
firmly,  and  used  to  thrust  with.  Similar  weapons  seem  to 
have  been  in  use  even  in  the  Chellean  period,  but  here  the 
points  used  were  chance  splinters  that  resulted  from 
breaking  larger  pieces,  that  is,  typical  eoliths,  while  the 
Mousterian  points  were  carefully  elaborated  tools,  made 
designedly  for  a  definite  purpose. 

The  art  of  retouching  the  edges  of  a  tool  or  weapon,  V 
mentioned  above,  first  appears  in  the  Mousterian,  and  is 
often  seen  in  artifacts  of  this  period.  It  consists  of  one 
or  more  rows  of  small  flakes,  upon  the  very  edge, 
and  confined  to  the  convex  side.  By  means  of  these  the 
straight,  though  rather  blunt,  edge  produced  by  the 
coarser  chippings,  done  after  the  Acheulian  method,  can 
be  brought  down  to  an  extremely  sharp  and  delicate  one. 
Beautiful  examples  of  retouching  are  frequently  seen  on 
the  stone  arrow  points  of  the  North  American  Indians, 


164 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


who  have  thus  brought  up  to  the  present  a  technique 
started  in  the  late  Quaternary. 

In  another  point  this  Mousterian  Period  marks  a  dis¬ 
tinct  advance  upon  all  preceding  times ;  and  that  is,  it 
exhibits  the  first  use  of  bone  as  a  material  from  which  to 
make  tools.  In  their  best  form  they  appear  as  pointed 


0  $  •« 

■  _ _  ....  I  -i»>  . > 

Fig.  33.— Mousterian  points;  each  is  made  of  a  medium  sized,  or  large  flake, 
struck  off  from  a  flint  nodule,  with  one  side  elaborated,  while  the  other 
side  is  left  untouched,  simply  showing  the  lines  of  the  original  blow 
which  separated  it  from  the  original  nodule.  The  elaborated  side  shows, 
not  only  a  finer  flaking  than  is  seen  in  the  axes  of  Chellean  or  Acheulian 
workmanship,  but  the  edges,  especially  toward  the  point,  are  retouched — 
that  is,  flaked  along  the  edges  with  a  row  of  very  small  flakes,  evidently 
the  last  strokes  made  in  finishing  the  implement.  These  “Mousterian 
points’’  were  evidently  set  into  long  sticks,  and  used  as  javelins  thrown 
by  hand,  or  as  arrows,  propelled  by  some  sort  of  throwing-stick.  The  bow,  as 
we  know  it,  was  not  devised  until  very  much  later,  perhaps  during  the  trans¬ 
ition  period  between  the  Paleolithic  and  the  Neolithic.  (After  Dechelette.) 


implements,  perhaps  the  very  tools  used  in  making  the 
fine  retouching  flakes  for  elaborating  the  edges,  but  of 
this  we  are  uncertain.  More  frequently  are  found  typical 
4 ‘bone  eoliths,”  that  is,  bones  or  pieces  of  bone,  not  in¬ 
tentionally  shaped  as  tools,  but  used  just  as  they  were 
for  various  purposes,  leaving,  as  in  the  case  of  stone 
eoliths,  the  marks  of  use,  being  scratched  and  dented  by 
the  objects  with  which  they  came  in  contact.  That  these 


EUROPEAN  PREHISTORY 


165 


scratches  are  not  simply  the  chance  marks  made  by  a 
flint  scraper  in  getting  the  meat  off  is  shown,  not  only 
by  the  concentration  of  them  upon  a  definite  region,  but 
also  by  the  fact  that  this  region  is  always  the  exact  spot 
where  such  scratches  would  occur  if  the  bone  were 
grasped  in  the  most  natural  way,  and  used  for  ordinary 
purposes. 

The  Mousterian  Period  seems  to  have  lasted  a  very 
long  time,  and  the  Mousterian  cult  is  recognized  in  de¬ 
posits  found  in  many  parts  of  Europe.1 

The  quest  of  caves  and  rock  shelters,  as  shelters  from 
the  advancing  cold,  which  was  characteristic  of  the  end 
of  the  Acheulian  and  the  beginning  of  the  Mousterian, 
precipitated  a  conflict  which  seems  hitherto  to  have  been 
avoided,  and  brought  man  face  to  face  with  a  formidable 
rival,  already  in  possession  of  these  very  retreats,  the 
huge  cave  bear,  TJrsus  spelaeus.  Against  this  foe,  the 
counterpart  of,  or  perhaps  identical  with,  the  grizzly 
bear  of  the  Rocky  Mountains,  with  no  weapons  more  for¬ 
midable  than  crude  stone  axes  and  pointed  javelins,  man 
proceeded,  and,  as  the  result  of  his  intrepidity  and  cun¬ 
ning,  actually  dispossessed  this  huge  beast  of  his  long- 
inhabited  caves.  As  an  eloquent  testimony  of  this  struggle 
there  may  now  be  seen  in  the  prehistoric  museum  at 
Trieste  the  skull  of  a  large  cave-bear,  with  the  greater 
part  of  a  Mousterian  axe  set  in  the  right  temporal  fossa, 

1  Important  Mousterian  sites  are  those  of  Taubach,  near  Wei¬ 
mar,  and  Achenheim,  near  Strassburg,  in  Germany  (the  latter 
perhaps  Aurignacian)  ;  the  grotto  of  Wildkirchli  in  Switzerland  ; 
several  Austrian  localities,  like  that  of  Willendorf,  near  Vienna ; 
and  perhaps  Krapina,  in  Croatia,  although  this  latter  site  may 
be  a  little  more  recent,  and  belong  rather  to  the  Aurignacian 
Period. 


166 


MAN'S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


deeply  imbedded  in  the  side  of  the  frontal  bone.  The 
blow  mnst  have  been  dealt  at  close  quarters,  as  the  axe 
was  not  a  missile  weapon ;  and  the  strength  of  arm  of 
the  intrepid  hunter  drove  it  directly  through  shaggy 
hair,  skin,  and  tough  temporal  muscle*  until  it  reached 
and  nearly  penetrated  the  heavy  skull.  Terrific  as  was 
the  blow,  the  bear  yet  recovered  and  lived  for  many 


Fig.  34. — Skull  of  a  cave-bear  (Ursus  spelseus),  found  in  a  cavern  at  Nabresina, 
near  Trieste,  and  bearing  on  the  right  side,  in  the  parietal  bone,  a  Paleo¬ 
lithic  stone  axe  of  the  Mousterian  type.  The  axe  had  almost  cut  through  the 
bone,  but  the  latter  had  grown  firmly  around  the  flint,  showing  that  after 
the  wound  the  animal  had  survived,  probably  for  many  years.  As  an  axe 
is  not  a  missile  weapon  the  blow  must  have  been  delivered  at  close  quar¬ 
ters  by  am  an  with  sufficient  courage  to  have  withstood  the  attack  of  this 
huge  beast,  and  writh  sufficient  coolness  to  deliver  the  blow  at  exactly  the 
right  time  and  in  precisely  the  proper  spot.  This  skull  is  now  in  the  Museo 
Civico  in  Trieste,  and  serves  as  an  eloquent  proof  of  an  actual  encounter 
between  early  man  and  the  worst  of  his  adversaries.  (After  Marchesetti.) 


years,  finally  dying  in  a  cave  always  retained  by  his  race, 
where  although  the  remains  of  nearly  three  hundred  bears 
have  already  been  found,  no  other  signs  of  contemporary 
man  occur,  except  this  axe. 

Other  large  animals  associated  with  Mousterian  man 
were  the  mammoth  (Elephas  primigenius) ,  the  wild 
horse,  the  large  wild  ox  or  “Ur”  of  the  Germanic  leg- 


EUROPEAN  PREHISTORY 


167 


gends,  the  bison  and  the  woolly  rhinoceros  ( Rhinoceros 
tichorhinns ) .  The  reindeer  and  arctic  fox  appeared  in 
the  middle  Mousterian  Period,  and  during  the  Aurig- 
nacian  Period,  immediately  ensuing,  at  the  height  of  the 
cold,  and  just  before  the  final  retreat  of  the  ice  sheet  of 
the  Wurm  glaciation,  there  came  the  musk-ox  ( Ovibos 
moschatus ),  sure  sign  of  an  almost  arctic  climate.  Os¬ 
born  suggests  that  there  was  probably  to  some  extent 
an  annual  migration  of  the  fauna,  and  that  the  extreme 
northern  forms  came  south  in  the  winter  months,  while 
during  the  summers,  which  are  long  in  these  latitudes, 
there  were  occasional  visits  from  the  more  southern  Ele- 
phas  antiquus  and  Merck’s  rhinoceros,  remains  of  which 
are  occasionally  found  in  Mousterian  deposits.  All  ot 
these  indications  of  cold  climate  are  best  accounted  for 
by  placing  the  Mousterian  Period  as  coincident  with  the 
Wurm  Ice,  with  its  several  fluctuations,  thus  making  the 
open  Solutrean  coincide  with  the  previous  glacial 
retreat.  The  resumption  of  cave  life  in  the  Magdalenian 
may  thus  be  accounted  for  by  the  coming  on  of  the 
minor  glaciation  of  the  Biihl.  Some  authors,  however, 
shift  the  Mousterian  a  whole  glaciation  further  back, 
making  it  coincide  with  the  Riss  Ice,  instead  of  the 
Wurm,  with  the  Solutrean  during  the  Riss-Wurm  inter¬ 
val,  and  the  Magdalenian  in  the  Wurm  glaciation. 

The  man  of  the  Mousterian  was  not  the  present  species, 
but  the  species  first  known  to  us  from  the  skeleton  of  the 
Neandertal  cave,  and  hence  called  Homo  neandertalen- 
sis.  The  bones,  which  are  now  well  known  in  both  sexes, 
portray  man-like  form  of  very  stout  build,  with  large 
chest  and  powerful  forearms;  with  short  legs  and  prob¬ 
ably  with  the  soles  of  the  feet  somewhat  turned  in,  as  in 


168 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


the  large  living  apes  and  in  the  infants  of  the  present 
human  species.  The  neck  was  very  stout  and  short,  the 
better  to  support  the  head,  which  was  of  enormous  size. 
The  teeth  were  large,  the  muzzle  protruded,  but  was  with¬ 
out  a  projecting  chin,  and  the  large  eye  sockets  were 
protected  by  heavy  supra-orbital  ridges,  which  met  in 
the  middle  and  formed  a  transverse  shelf  over  the  eyes. 
Our  whole  picture,  presented  in  greater  detail  elsewhere, 
is  that  of  a  stooping  figure,  with  bowed  back  and  bent 
legs,  probably  more  active  in  climbing  trees  than  any 
living  human  race,  yet  spending  the  most  of  his  time 
upon  the  ground ;  in  short,  sufficiently  distinct  from  mod¬ 
ern  man  to  constitute  a  distinct  species. 

38.  Middle  Paleolithic  Times ;  the  Aurignacian  Pernod. 
— To  the  moderate  warmth  which  characterized  the  lat¬ 
ter  part  of  the  Mousterian  Period  succeeded  a  time  of 
dampness  and  cold,  probably  one  of  those  minor  fluctua¬ 
tions  characteristic  of  the  waning  centuries  of  the  Wurm 
Ice  epoch.  While  over  the  level  steppes  of  the  river  val¬ 
leys  enormous  herds  of  wild  horses  and  mammoths  still 
wandered,  the  reindeer  from  the  north  became  more  fre¬ 
quent,  and  the  presence  of  such  animals  as  the  Alpine 
gopher  gives  further  indication  of  the  changing  climatic 
conditions.  The  typical  deposits  of  this  period  occur  in 
the  shallower  grottoes,  or  abris-sous-roches  of  Aurignac, 
in  southern  France  (Haute-Garonne) ,  but  similar  de¬ 
posits  are  found  also  in  Belgium,  Germany,  and  Austria, 
always  with  the  same  types  of  artifacts,  and  associated 
with  the  same  arctic  fauna.  Yet,  in  spite  of  the  unpro- 
pitious  climate,  and  the  privations  in  life  indicated  by 
the  enforced  shelter  in  caverns  and  beneath  overhanging 
rocks,  a  most  noteworthy  advance  was  made  in  Euro- 


EUROPEAN  PREHISTORY 


169 


pean  culture,  for  there  appeared  at  this  very  time  the 
first  representatives  of  the  modern  species  of  man,  Homo 
sapiens.  The  locality  where  the  first  of  these  skeletons 
were  found  was  near  the  village  of  Cro-Magnon,  on  the 
river  Vezere,  but  similar  skeletons  of  this  period  and 
type  are  now  known  from  several  other  parts  of  southern 
France,  especially  Mentone  and  the  adjacent  Italian  soil, 
just  across  the  border.  The  majority  of  the  skeletons 
found  here  are  those  of  the  Cro-Magnon  type,  but  among 
them  was  found  a  double  grave,  containing  a  woman  and 
a  boy  of  pronounced  Negroid  type,  and  racially  distinct. 
These  were  established  as  the  types,  and  thus  far  the  only 
representatives  of  the  ‘  ‘  Grimaldi  Race,  ’  ’  the  name  taken 
from  the  family  name  of  Albert,  Prince  of  Monaco,  under 
whose  leadership  the  excavations  took  place  and  upon 
whose  territory  the  graves  were  found. 

A  skeleton,  unearthed  at  Combe-Capelle,  in  Perigord, 
in  1909,  has  been  made  the  type  of  a  third  Aurignaoian 
race,  or  even  of  a  new  species,  perhaps  intermediate  be¬ 
tween  the  Neandertals  and  the  modern  species,  Homo 
aurignaeensis.  This  extreme  view  of  specific  distinct¬ 
ness  is  not  generally  held,  but  this  skeleton  of  Combe- 
Capelle  seems  at  least  a  distinct  race  from  the  Cro-Mag¬ 
nons,  as  it  is  short  in  stature,  about  five  feet,  three  inches, 
while  the  average  male  Cro-Magnons  was  six  feet,  one 
and  one-half  inches. 

With  the  coming  of  these  new  human  types,  probably 
all  representatives  of  the  new  species  II.  sapiens,  there 
are  associated  the  following  advances  in  the  culture  of 
the  period:  (1)  new  types  of  stone  artifacts,  (2)  arti¬ 
facts  of  bone,  some  of  them  definitely  shaped  for  use  as 
tools,  and  (3)  the  appearance  of  incised  drawings  and 


170 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


of  carvings,  representing  associated  animal  forms.  Per¬ 
haps,  too,  may  be  mentioned  as  (4),  the  final  disap¬ 
pearance  from  the  earth  of  that  sturdy  race,  the  Nean- 
dertal  folk,  whose  valor  in  exterminating  the  cave  bear 
seems  mainly  to  have  availed  in  making  the  country  more 
habitable  for  their  usurping  successors,  whose  appear¬ 
ance  in  Europe  was  very  likely  the  chief  reason  for  their 
rapid  extinction.  Sic  vos  non  vobis! 

Flint  artifacts  from  Aurignacian  culture  layers  are 
not  fundamentally  different  from  those  met  with  in  the 
Mousterian,  that  is,  they  are  the  tools  of  flint  users  in 
the  Paleolithic  stage  of  development.  Collections  of 
Aurignacian  artifacts  are,  however,  notable  from  the 
number  of  small  instruments  made  apparently  from 


Fig.  35. — Small  stone  implements  from  Aurignacian  deposits.  (1) 
Scraper;  (2,  3)  Knife  blades;  (4,  5)  Borers.  (After  Dechelette.) 


chance  flakes,  yet  worked  down  to  points  and  with  re¬ 
touched  edges,  forming  tools  called  “burins,”  and  used 
in  the  production  of  the  fine  engravings  also  characteris¬ 
tic  of  the  period.  Some  of  these  are  remarkable  for  their 
small  size,  plainly  indicative  of  the  men  who  used  them, 


EUROPEAN  PREHISTORY 


171 


who  could  perform  easily  and  continually  certain  pre¬ 
cise  motions  entirely  beyond  the  best  which  the  Nean- 
dertal  men  could  do,  as  shown  by  the  large,  coarse  arti¬ 
facts  of  previous  times. 

The  same  degree  of  skill  is  also  shown  in  the  delicate 
implements  of  bone,  horn  and  ivory,  more  characteristic 
of  the  two  following  periods,  yet  not  wanting  in  the 
Aurignacian,  and  especially  in  the  statuettes  or  figurines, 
the  earliest  of  which  are  of  Aurignacian  age.  In  this 
connection,  however,  one  involuntarily  thinks  of  the 
“bone-eoliths”  of  the  previous  period,  undoubtedly  the 
work  of  the  unfortunate  Neandertal  people,  which,  after 
the  analogy  of  the  flints,  indicates  the  beginnings  of  an 
art  in  which  the  newcomers  so  easily  excelled. 

Concerning  the  land  of  origin  of  this  new  Aurignacian 
culture,  an  Asiastic  origin  is  rendered  unlikely  from  the 
fact  that  practically  all  the  Aurignacian  deposits  occur 
in  south-western  Europe,  and  that  through  the  eastern 
part,  bordering  upon  Asia,  nothing  of  this  form  of  cul¬ 
ture  has  been  found.  Aside  from  this  much  of  the  best 
Aurignacian  material  has  been  found  near  the  border 
of  the  Mediterranean,  a  position  which  would  strongly 
suggest  Africa  as  the  land  from  which  Homo  sapiens 
entered  Europe.  The  differences,  both  in  culture  and  in 
physical  character,  between  him  and  his  Neandertal  pre¬ 
decessor,  especially  the  latter,  render  a  development  in 
place  well  nigh  impossible.  The  Neandertals  were  short 
of  stature,  averaging  about  five  feet,  three  inches  in 
height ;  the  Cro-Magnons  were  giants,  the  males  ranging 
from  five  feet,  ten  inches,  to  six  feet,  five  inches.  The 
arms  and  legs  of  the  first  were  short ;  those  of  the  second 
disproportionately  long.  The  men  of  Cro-Magnon  pos- 


172 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


sessed  an  erect  carriage ;  those  of  Neandertal  carried  their 
heads  forward,  and  walked  with  their  knees  habitually 
a  little  bent,  and  had  curved  thighs.  In  the  face  the  two 
showed  striking  differences,  certainly  great  enough  to 
establish  specific  difference  between  the  two,  perhaps 
sufficient  to  rank  them  as  separate  genera.  The  large 
head  of  the  Neandertal  man,  with  its  overhanging  supra¬ 
orbital  arches,  its  slanting  forehead  and  low  cranium, 
and  its  lack  of  chin,  must  have  contrasted  strongly,  when 
in  the  flesh,  with  the  equally  ponderous  head  of  men  of 
the  Cro-Magnon,  with  their  smooth  brows,  high,  straight 
forehead,  and  firm,  prominent  chin,  raised  upon  a  lofty 
and  erect  body.  It  is  no  wonder  that,  as  Osborn  has 
pointed  out,  there  was  no  mating  between  the  two,  and 
consequently  no  transition  forms.  The  giant  from  abroad, 
with  his  superior  culture  and  physical  ability,  must  have 
looked  upon  the  sturdy  but  dwarfish  Neandertal,  with 
his  beetling  brows,  as  little  better  than  an  ape,  and  as 
such  the  latter  was  probably  hunted  like  an  animal,  lead¬ 
ing  to  his  speedy  extermination.  Whether  or  not  the 
work  of  the  men  of  Cro-Magnon,  the  Neandertal  species 
disappears  at  this  point  in  our  history,  and  leaves  no  de¬ 
scendants. 

Through  this  sudden  substitution  of  one  species  of 
man  for  another  within  a  comparatively  short  interval, 
resulting  also  in  a  change  of  activities  and  industries, 
we  see  that  not  all  prehistory  chronicles  a  continuous 
evolution  of  one  strain;  we  realize  also  that  not  all  cul¬ 
tural  development  took  place  in  Europe,  or  is  represented 
in  European  deposits.  The  earlier  history  of  our  species, 
first  represented  in  Europe  by  the  men  of  Cro-Magnon 
some  forty  thousands  years  ago,  is  still  unknown,  and 


EUROPEAN  PREHISTORY 


173 


must  be  sought  in  that  yet  unknown  land  of  their  origin 
— western  Asia,  perhaps,  or  northern  Africa.  In  Europe 
this  Aurignacian  Period  represents  a  wide  hiatus;  and 
the  men,  whose  gradual  evolution  we  are  permitted  to 
trace  upward  from  eoliths  and  archeoliths,  and  through 
the  record  of  the  Heidelberg  jaw  and  the  Piltdown  frag¬ 
ments,  were  not  permitted  to  complete  their  long  labor, 
but  “ unwept  for  and  unsung”  laid  in  the  dust  their 
crude  axes  and  their  missile  weapons,  hand-hurled  and 
ineffective,  before  the  superior  intelligence  of  the  modern 
race. 

39.  Middle  Paleolithic  Times;  the  Solutrean  Period. 
— The  period  of  Solutre  is  cast  in  different  scenes  from 
that  of  the  preceding.  The  great  Wurm  glaciation  has 
evidently  retreated  to  the  far  north,  and  laid  bare  ex¬ 
tensive  plains  or  steppes,  such  as  are  found  now  in  cen¬ 
tral  Asia.  In  the  cold  and  dry  climate  with  which  the 
Pleistocene  times  opened,  man  came  out  of  his  caves  and 
lived  throughout  the  period  more  in  the  open ;  and  with 
the  impetus  afforded  by  the  vast  herds  of  reindeer  and 
of  wild  horses,  which  covered  the  plains,  became  a  wan¬ 
dering  hunter.  Thus  the  artifacts  of  the  time  show  great 
advances  in  implements  of  the  chase.  From  the  predom¬ 
inance  of  the  bones  of  the  horse  among  culture  deposits 
of  this  period  it  is  plain  that  this  animal  formed  the 
principal  food,  and  from  this  circumstance  the  Solu¬ 
trean  Period  has  been  termed  the  “ Wild-horse  Period.” 
The  animal  was,  however,  hunted  entirely  for  food,  and 
ages  were  yet  to  elapse  before  there  is  found  a  bit  or  a 
curb,  or  the  fragment  of  a  chariot  wheel,  to  indicate  its 
conquest  and  enslavement  in  the  service  of  man.  Fleet 
of  foot,  and  easily  apprised  of  danger,  the  wild  horse  is 


174 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


not  easily  caught  alive,  and  not  only  wit,  but  courage, 
was  needed  to  first  bring  down  this  noble  quarry. 

There  are  also  plentiful  suggestions  of  subtle  means  of 
gaining  supremacy  over  the  beasts  such  as  pitfalls,  traps 
and  snares,  by  which  man  matched  his  cunning  with  that 
of  his  victims ;  and  if  we  may  judge  from  an  indistinct 
sketch  on  ivory,  dating  from  this  time,  the  lasso  also 
on  both  ends,  and  the  whole  swallowed  by  the  fish.  Upon 
pulling  on  this  implement  it  would  become  placed  trans¬ 
versely  across  the  pharynx  or  stomach  of  the  victim,  and 
the  fish  would  then  be  easily  pulled  in. 

The  Solutrean  Period  was  established  upon  a  cave  de¬ 
posit  located  near  the  village  of  Solutre  (Saone-et-Loire) , 
France,  a  deposit  that  showed  at  once  by  the  nature  of 
its  artifacts  a  different  type  of  culture  from  any  hitherto 
known.  A  characteristic  form,  occurring  in  abundance, 
is  the  “laurel-leaf  point.’ *  This  consists  of  a  thin,  flat 
blade  of  lanceolate  outline,  pointed  at  both  ends,  and 
with  a  finely  retouched  edge  running  around  the  entire 
margin.  This  flint  was  evidently  intended  to  be  inserted 
in  the  end  of  a  stick,  sinking  in  deeper  with  every  blow, 
may  have  been  used.  Since,  moreover,  these  means  often 
furnished  the  animals  alive,  the  opportunity  of  taming 
and  domesticating  them  was  already  at  hand,  although  a 
long  time  was  yet  to  intervene  before  this  was  definitely 
accomplished. 

As  would  be  expected  of  a  race  long  accustomed  to  the 
chase,  the  art  of  fishing  was  also  developed,  and,  although 
still  without  boats,  the  man  of  Solutre  became  an  effi¬ 
cient  shore  fisherman.  The  Solutrean  fishhook  was  a 
straight  piece  of  bone,  pointed  at  both  ends,  and  tied  to 
a  thong  about  the  middle.  The  bait  was  evidently  put 


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176 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


but  prevented  from  splitting  its  haft  by  being  tied  with 
thongs.  The  finished  weapon  was  probably  a  javelin. 

Among  these  points,  too,  there  occurs  for  the  first  time 
the  barb,  placed  on  one  side  only,  and  exhibiting  a  com¬ 
plete  series  of  stages,  from  the  simple  triangular  point 
with  one  of  the  lower  corners  broken  off,  to  a  deep  notch, 
placed  much  higher  up  along  the  side.  Since  a  similar 
point,  barbed  on  one  side  only,  and  hafted  as  a  knife,  is 
found  among  the  modern  Eskimo,  who  show  in  many 
other  respects  a  Solutrean  level  of  culture,  it  is  quite 
probable  that  here  also  the  tool  served  a  similar  use,  and 
that  there,  as  here,  the  barb  was  developed  as  a  means 
for  fastening  the  piece  more  firmly  to  the  handle.  The 
later  development  of  the  double  barb  in  a  missile  point, 
with  the  hostile  intention  of  retaining  the  weapon  in  the 
wound,  was  thus  plainly  accidental  in  origin,  and  trace¬ 
able  to  peaceful  and  industrial  causes. 

40.  Middle  Paleotliic  Times;  the  Magdalenian  Period. 
— As  the  men  of  the  Solutrean  Period  are  called  the 
“wild  horse  hunters,”  the  Magdalenians  are  frequently 
called  the  “reindeer  people,”  for  the  southern  migra¬ 
tions  of  these  animals,  begun  in  the  Solutrean,  continued 
throughout  the  succeeding  period,  and  the  contemporary 
human  culture  is  closely  associated  with  this  animal.  Its 
flesh  served  as  food;  its  bones  and  horns  supplied  the 
materials  for  numerous  implements ;  its  figure  was  etched 
upon  the  walls  of  the  caverns  or  carved  upon  ivory 
poniard  handles;  and  its  skins  served  for  clothing,  fas¬ 
tened  together  by  horn  or  ivory  studs,  or  sewn  by  rude 
bone  needles  or  bodkins. 

This  great  advance  in  culture  development,  which 
shows  us  a  people  at  about  the  level  of  our  present  day 


Fig.  37. — Flints  of  the  Magdalenian  Period,  from  the  cavern  of  Laugerie-Basse 
(Dordogne)  Note  especially  the  row  of  little  tools  of  various  shapes,  indi¬ 

cating  a  well  differentiated  technique,  and  trained  fingers.  One  half  natural 
size.  (After  Bourlon,  in  L’ Anthropologie.) 


178 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


Eskimo,1  is  made  comprehensible  through  the  study  of 
the  Aurignacian  and  Solutrean,  which,  in  all  lines,  show 
the  beginnings  of  those  arts  that  came  to  fruition  in  the 
Magdalenian. 

From  this  time  on,  in  the  study  of  human  develop¬ 
ment,  it  is  no  longer  possible  to  enumerate  at  length  the 
various  types  of  implements  used,  for  there  has  been  a 
great  multiplication,  both  in  the  shapes  and  sizes,  and 
in  the  materials;  and  bone,  horn  and  ivory  have  been 
successively  added  to  the  flints.  Each  of  these  materials, 
however,  presents  different  possibilities  of  manufacture, 
and  its  introduction  is  succeeded  immediately  by  new 
types  of  implements,  rendering  possible  new  industries 
as  well  as  great  improvements  of  the  old.  Thus  the  pur¬ 
suits  of  hunting  and  fishing,  which  had  already  in  the 
previous  period  received  much  attention,  and  which,  as 
now,  were  undoubtedly  prosecuted  by  the  male  portion 
of  the  community,  profited  greatly  from  the  development 
of  delicate  lances  and  barbed  spears,  which  the  use  of 
bone  and  horn  made  easily  possible.  The  spear-thrower 
also,  the  precursor  of  the  bow,  made  its  definite  appear¬ 
ance,  and  the  elaborate  ornamentation  to  which  it  was 
subjected,  especially  the  frequent  appearance  of  a  human 
face  at  the  handle  end,  suggests  not  only  the  great  value 

1 W.  J.  Sollas,  in  his  “Ancient  Hunters”  (Macmillan,  1911) 
compares  the  Mousterians  with  the  Australians  in  culture,  the 
Aurignacians  with  the  Bushmen,  and  the  Magdelenians  with 
the  Eskimo.  The  extinct  Tasmanians  may  have  been  Chellean. 
In  many  ways  these  comparisons  are  striking,  and  the  remains 
of  these  modern  peoples,  if  found  in  deposits  many  thousands 
of  years  from  new,  would  correspond  quite  closely  with  those 
of  the  prehistoric  peoples  specified.  One  must  remember,  how¬ 
ever,  that,  while  the  Aurignacians  and  Magdalenians  were  men 
of  our  own  species,  the  Mousterians  were  Neandertals  distinct 
specifically  from  Homo  sapiens. 


EUROPEAN  PREHISTORY 


179 


with  which  it  was  regarded,  but  also,  after  the  analogy 
of  many  modern  peoples,  that  it  was  viewed  almost  as  a 
sentient  being,  cared  for  and  probably  given  a  definite 
name,  as  in  the  sword  “Excalibur”  of  the  Arthurian 


i ...  i  .1  ■■  i - 1 - 1 


Fig.  38. — Implements  of  bone  and  horn  of  the  Magdalenian  Period,  from  Che  cavern 
of  Laugerie-Basse  (Dordogne).  One-half  natural  size.  {After  Bourlon,  in 
L’  Anthropologie.) 


180 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


legends.  Similar  spear-throwers,  for  the  mechanical  pro¬ 
pulsion  of  missile  weapons,  and  substituting  a  stronger 
force  than  that  produced  by  the  unaided  arm  muscles, 
although  usually  formed  of  wood  instead  of  horn,  are 
found  to-day  in  many  parts  of  the  world ;  for  example, 
among  the  Australians,  and  the  Indians  of  British  Colum¬ 
bia.  This  weapon  is  used,  not  as  a  missile  itself,  as  in 
the  ease  of  the  boomerang,  but  as  an  engine  for  the  pro¬ 
jection  of  a  javelin,  or  arrow.  The  blunt  end  of  the 
proper  missile  is  received  into  a  notch  of  the  throwing- 
stick,  and  is  launched  forth  by  a  rapid  movement  of  the 
stick  in  the  hand,  much  as  in  the  ease  of  the  springy 
stick  used  by  the  modern  small  boy  in  hurling  green 
apples  or  balls  of  clay.  That  in  this  engine,  which  em¬ 
ploys  the  elastic  character  of  the  material  as  an  aid  in 
hurling  a  dart,  the  possibilities  of  the  bow  are  already 
suggested,  is  evident  to  all.1 

1  While  there  is  to  us  a  definite  connection  between  the  spear- 
thrower,  a  mechanical  device  for  the  propulsion  of  a  javelin, 
and  the  how  and  arrow,  there  is  no  indication  that  the  latter 
evolved  from  the  former.  The  javelin,  first  hurled  by  the  hand, 
surely  developed  into  the  arrow,  hut  the  spear-thrower  never 
developed  into  the  bow.  There  are  several  causes  which  obscure 
our  knowledge  concerning  the  time  or  manner  of  introduction 
of  this  latter  weapon.  In  the  first  place  a  spear-thrower,  or 
throwing-stick,  was  made  of  ivory,  horn,  or  some  such  rigid  ma¬ 
terial  likely  to  be  preserved,  while,  in  order  to  insure  the  proper 
degree  of  elasticity,  a  bow  must  be  of  wood,  a  material  scarcely 
to  be  looked  for  in  deposits  of  such  remote  antiquity.  The 
first  definite  record  of  bows  comes  to  us  from  certain  of  the 
rock  paintings  of  the  Pyrenean  region,  but  an  exact  date  of 
these  in  terms  of  the  established  periods  of  prehistory  presents 
serious  difficulties,  and  is  uncertain  at  best.  It  has  often  been 
taken  for  granted  that  all  the  rock  paintings  in  this  region, 
together  with  the  ivory  statuettes,  belong  to  the  Magdalenian 
Period,  but  if  this  be  so,  says  Breuil,  the  men  living  in  Spain 
at  that  time  were  in  some  points  very  different  from  their 
French  contemporaries,  the  typical  Magdalenians.  It  is  much 


EUROPEAN  PREHISTORY 


181 


The  woman’s  part  in  this  cultural  development  is  re¬ 
vealed  by  the  numerous  bone  awls  and  needles,  which  sug¬ 
gest  the  possibility  of  shaped  garments  of  skin,  to  be 
employed  during  the  winter  months  as  a  protection  from 
the  cold.  Personal  adornment,  undoubtedly  employed 
by  both  sexes,  sometimes  found  in  earlier  periods,  has 
now  become  a  pronounced  feature,  and  pendant  orna¬ 
ments,  necklaces,  and  so  forth,  of  shell,  bone  and  teeth, 
bored  to  allow  them  to  be  strung,  are  frequently  met  with. 
The  danger  with  which  the  hunting  of  the  cave-bear 
was  still  fraught,  and  the  honor  accruing  to  the  slayer, 
are  eloquently  told  by  the  occurrence  of  teeth  of  these 
animals,  especially  the  canines,  pierced  by  round  holes 
for  attachment  to  thongs. 

Associated  mainly  with  the  Magdalenian  Period  is  the 
remarkable  development  of  art,  expressed  in  all  possible 
ways,  which  renders  this  epoch  the  Golden  Age  of  the 
Paleolithic.  Within  the  deposits  on  the  floor  of  caves 
and  rock  shelters  are  found  admirable  sketches  of  con¬ 
temporaneous  animals,  cut  into  the  surface  of  pieces  of 
bone,  ivory  and  stone ;  and  more  rarely  there  occur  ex¬ 
cellent  figures  in  the  round,  sometimes  by  themselves, 
sometimes  serving  as  the  handles  of  poniards  and  other 
implements.  In  these  small  figures,  with  the  complete 
animal  only  three  or  four  inches  in  length,  the  technique 
reaches  its  highest  point  of  perfection,  since  they  are 
executed  in  detail,  and  often  show  great  skill  in  adapt- 

more  probable  that  the  Pyrenean  paintings  in  which  the  how 
and  arrow  appear  are,  though  ancient,  much  later  than  the 
Magdalenian,  and  belong  to  the  Azylian  Period,  or  even  later. 
Such  a  supposition  has  the  advantage  of  being  in  close  accord 
with  the  independent  conclusions  or  archeologists  in  other  coun¬ 
tries,  e.  g.  the  Danes. 


182 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


ing  an  animal  form  to  use  as  a  handle,  being  at  once  nat¬ 
ural  in  pose  and  easy  to  grasp.  Thus  in  a  well  known 
poniard  of  ivory,  the  handle  is  a  reindeer,  with  forelegs 
in  a  kneeling  position  and  with  the  head  thrown  back. 
The  antlers  thus  rest  naturally  along  the  back,  the  fore¬ 
legs  are  practically  disposed  of,  and  the  hind  legs  are 


Fig.  39. — Sketch  of  a  bison  inscribed  upon  a  small,  flat  slab  of  limestone.  In 
the  original  the  length  of  the  body,  from  nose  to  rump,  is  two  and  three 
quarters  inches,  and  the  height,  from  forefoot  to  hump,  two  inches.  Note 
the  marks  at  the  left,  below  the  chest,  which  may  possibly  be  the  signature 
of  the  artist!  From  the  Magdalenian  deposit  in  the  cavern  of  Laugerie- 
Basse.  (After  Bourlon,  in  L’ Anthropologie.) 


indefinite  and  continuous  with  the  blade.  This  handle 
fits  the  hand  most  readily,  and  places  the  blade  in  exactly 
the  proper  direction  for  execution. 

In  certain  localities,  especially  in  the  Pyrenean  region 
in  both  France  and  Spain,  the  walls  of  the  caverns,  wher¬ 
ever  a  flat  surface  offers  itself,  are  adorned  with  large 


Fig.  40.— Wall  painting,  representing  a  charging  bison.  Cavern  of  Altamira, 
Northern  Spain.  (After  Cartailhac  and  Breuil,  in  L’ Anthropologie.) 


Fig.  41. — Incised  drawing  on  the  wall  of  the  cavern  of  'Marsoulas,  Haute 
Garonne,  France.  Probably  Magdalenian.  (After  Cartailhac  and  Breuil,  in 
L’ Anthropologie.) 


184 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


wall  paintings,  the  outline  incised  after  the  manner  of 
the  smaller  sketches,  and  the  surface  colored  with  chalk, 
ochre,  charcoal  and  various  other  mineral  pigments, 
which,  in  the  undisturbed  seclusion  of  the  caves,  have 
remained  to  the  present  day.  Indeed,  in  an  inner  re¬ 
cess  of  the  cavern  of  Tuc  d’Audobert  (Ariege)  there 
were  discovered  in  1921  by  Count  Begouen,  a  pair  of 
bisons,  nearly  half  life  size,  modeled  in  clay,  as  perfect 
as  when  left  by  the  artist.  They  recline  at  an  angle 
against  a  rock  protruding  from  the  cavern  floor,  and  are 
in  the  form  of  a  very  high  relief,  and  not  quite  complete 
statues,  for  the  side  in  contact  with  the  rock  was  not 
completed.  They  are  about  two  feet  each  in  length  by 
one  in  height,  and  were  finished  in  great  detail,  grooves 
and  indented  lines  representing  the  manes  and  flowing 
hair,  and  evidently  executed  by  an  instrument  of  bone 
or  wood.  They  were  found  in  an  inner  recess  of  the  cave, 
access  to  the  chamber  having  been  closed  by  a  large  rock, 
and  to  this  circumstance  they  owe  their  long  preserva¬ 
tion.  Somewhat  corresponding  to  these  statues  a  num¬ 
ber  of  reliefs  of  animals,  mainly  horses,  have  been  found 
in  the  open,  associated  with  rock  shelters,  and  nearly  life 
size. 

The  artistic  merit  of  all  of  these  representations, 
whether  painting  or  sculpture,  large  or  small,  is  surpris¬ 
ing.  The  boldness  of  the  lines,  and  the  exactness  with 
which  they  express  an  idea,  are  often  admirable,  even 
viewed  from  our  modern  standpoint.  They  are  so  ex¬ 
cellent  and  so  numerous  that  we  possess  complete  sets 
of  illustrations  of  at  least  the  larger  fauna  of  the  epoch, 
which  would  reproduce  the  conditions  for  us,  even  though 
there  were  no  bones  available,  with  which  to  corroborate 


EUROPEAN  PREHISTORY 


185 


the  work  of  the  Paleolithic  artist.  In  these  representa¬ 
tions  we  find  with  great  frequency  the  bison,  the  rein¬ 
deer,  and  the  mammoth,  the  latter  incised  or  carved  in 
the  round  upon  a  piece  of  its  own  ivory.  More  rarely 
are  found  bears,  both  the  huge  one  of  the  cave,  and  the 
smaller  brown  variety,  with  the  specific  characters  well 
marked ;  also  the  ur,  the  horse  and  the  wild  pig.1 

Representations  of  man  himself  are  of  rare  occurrence, 
and  then  never  so  well  done  as  are  the  associated  animals. 
The  faces  are  often  grotesque,  and  the  females  are  usually 
shown  grossly  fat,  of  the  type  admired  by  the  present- 
day  Bushmen.  The  human  figures  are  generally  nude, 
perhaps  always  so,  but  in  a  few  cases  certain  regular 
lines,  which  cover  the  bodies,  and  which  cannot  be  inter¬ 
preted  as  shading,  represent  either  hair,  clothes  or,  more 
likely,  tattooing.  In  incised  sketches  man  often  appears 


1  As  the  best  of  this  Paleolithic  art  has  been  found  in  France 
and  northern  Spain,  the  first  record  of  new  discoveries  in  this 
line  appear  in  the  French  technical  journals,  especially  in 
U Anthropologie.  Among  these  may  be  mentioned  the  following  : 
IAAnthropol.  T.  15,  1904.  pp.  129-170 ;  article  by  E.  Piette  on  the 
finds  in  the  cavern  of  Mas  d’Azil  (Dept.  Arriege).  T.  15,  1904, 
pp.  625-044 ;  Cartailhac  and  Abbe  Breuil  on  the  mural  paintings 
in  the  cavern  of  Altamira  (Prov.  of  Santander),  Spain.  T.  18, 
1907,  pp.  10-36 ;  article  by  the  above  authors  on  the  deposits 
of  the  grotto  of  Laugerie-basse  (Depte.  Dordogne).  T.  19,  1908, 
pp.  15-46,  article  by  the  above  authors  on  the  cave  of  Niaux 
(Arriege).  T.  23,  i912,  pp.  529-562,  article  by  the  Abbe  Breuil 
and  others  on  certain  caverns  of  Spain,  la  Vieja,  and  Echelles. 
T.  27,  1916,  pp.  1-26,  article  by  the  late  Capt.  Bourlon  on  the 
newest  finds  at  Laugerie-basse.  Illustrations  and  description 
of  large  rock  sculptures  are  found  in  L' Anthropol  T.  22,  1911, 
pp.  3S5-402,  by  Lalanne  and  Breuil,  describing  those  found  at 
Cap-blanc  (Dordogne).  The  bisons  modeled  in  clay  are  de¬ 
scribed  by  Count  Begouen  in  the  same  journal,  T.  23,  1912,  pp. 
657-665.  An  excellent  popular  article,  mainly  on  the  mural 
paintings  at  Altamira,  in  Spain,  appeared  in  the  Illustrated 
London  Netvs ,  Aug.  10,  1912. 


180 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


as  a  hunter.  In  one  such  he  is  seen,  crawling  upon  his 
stomach,  with  uplifted  javelin,  stalking  a  grazing  bison, 
which  appears  already  alert,  as  though  scenting  danger ; 
in  another  an  unclothed  man  walks  along,  carrying  a 
stick  for  spear  over  his  shoulder.1 

It  is  naturally  difficult  to  date  a  mural  painting  found 
upon  the  wall  of  a  cave,  and  we  are  none  too  sure  con¬ 
cerning  many  of  the  smaller  works  of  art  found  in  de¬ 
posits  that  contain  both  Aurignacian  and  Magdalenian 
artifacts,  especially  as  many  forms  characteristic  of  the 
earlier  period  were  still  in  vogue  during  the  later  one. 
There  is  consequently  some  difference  of  opinion  con¬ 
cerning  the  time  during  which  this  art  was  at  its  height. 

There  is  a  well  supported  view  which  places  much  of 
the  art  within  the  Aurignacian  Period,  and  Sollas  draws 
a  telling  comparison  between  the  Aurignacians  and  the 
modern  Bushmen,  by  putting  the  statuettes  of  grossly  fat 
women  in  the  Aurignacian  Period,  and  comparing  them 
with  the  steatopygous  females  admired  by  the  Bushmen. 
This  date  for  the  statuettes  referred  to  is  supported  in 
his  recent  work  (“Men  of  the  Old  Stone  Age,”  1916) 
by  Osborn,  who  includes  here  most  of  the  cruder  carv¬ 
ings  and  paintings  and  a  few  of  those  with  more  merit. 
Others,  including  Dechelette,  consider  the  Magdalenian 

1  Many  of  these  rather  poorly  executed  human  figures  are 
attributed  by  many  authorities  to  a  previous  period,  the  Aurig¬ 
nacian,  which  relieves  Magdalenian  art  of  the  burden  of  re¬ 
sponsibility  for  them.  Several  incised  figures  of  two  feet  or 
more  in  length  have  been  recently  found  by  Lalanne  in  the 
shelter  of  Laussel  (Dordogne)  of  which  good  representations 
will  he  found  in  L’Anthropologie.  T.  23.  1912,  pp.  129-149.  One 
of  these  figures  is  that  of  a  well-proportioned  man,  seen  from 
the  side;  two  others  are  those  of  grossly  fat  women,  one  holding 
the  horn  of  a  bison  in  her  uplifted  right  hand.  The  author 
considers  these  definitely  Aurignacian. 


EUROPEAN  PREHISTORY 


1ST 


as  the  period  which  witnessed  the  greater  part  of  the 
development  of  Paleolithic  art,  but  this  latter  author 
places  the  last  and  best  pieces  in  the  Azilian,  the  period 
immediately  following  the  Magdalenian.  As  somewhat 
opposed  to  the  first  view,  so  long  as  it  is  still  a  theory,  is 
the  practical  absence  of  artistic  power  during  the  Solu- 
trean,  that  intervenes  between  the  Aurignacian  and  Mag¬ 
dalenian  ;  also,  the  crudeness  of  the  Aurignacian  manip¬ 
ulation  of  bone  artifacts  used  for  other  purposes. 

The  development  of  art  is  definitely  associated  with 
life  in  caverns,  and  points  to  a  time  of  cool  climate,  and 
the  plentiful  use  of  fire.  It  is  known  also  that,  aside 
from  the  firelight,  the  Paleolithic  artists  employed  a 
simple  type  of  lamp.  These,  in  the  form  of  flat,  oval 
pieces  of  stone,  bearing  a  hollow  perhaps  for  the  recep¬ 
tion  of  animal  fat  or  oil,  have  been  found  on  the  floor 
of  caves,  in  association  with  the  mural  paintings:  yet,  al¬ 
though  in  modern  art  and  in  imaginative  literature  the 
early  cave  artists  are  commonly  represented  as  working 
upon,  or  admiring,  their  work  in  the  deeper  recesses, 
lamps  in  hand,  there  are  so  few  of  them  found,  and  the 
original  purpose  of  these  oval  discs  is  still  so  uncertain 
that,  as  an  expert  archeologist  (N.  S.  Nelson)  has  stated, 
in  writing  to  the  present  author  concerning  this  very 
point,  “the  means  of  lighting  used  in  exploring  or  while 
drawing  pictures,  in  distant  interiors  of  the  caverns, 
seems  still  an  unsolved  problem.” 

41.  Late  Paleolithic  Times;  the  Azilian-T ardenoisan 
Period d — The  great  geological  event  which  put  an  end 

1  Sollas,  who  includes  the  Mesvinian  and  Strepyan  in  the 
Paleolithic,  closes  this  age  with  the  Magdalenian :  Dechelette 
closes  the  Paleolithic  at  the  same  place  and  uses  the  Azilian  as 


188  MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 

to  the  Magdalenian  Period  and  ushered  in  the  periods 
collectively  termed  the  Late  Paleolithic  was  the  final 
diminution  of  the  cold,  and  the  melting  of  the  great  gla¬ 
ciers.  This  event  brought  important  changes  throughout 
tral  and  northern  Europe,  and  profoundly  affected  all 
animal  and  plant  life  there,  including  man  himself.  The 
melting  of  the  vast  ice  fields  filled  the  lower  lands  with 
chains  of  great  lakes,  which  roughly  defined  the  modern 
river  valleys;  and  this  condition  produced  in  its  turn 
an  unusually  heavy  rainfall,  that  developed  in  those 
lands  that  lay  above  the  lake  level  a  plentiful  system 
of  rivers.  These  were  precisely  the  right  conditions  to 
produce  a  luxuriant  forest  growth,  and  the  face  of  the 
country,  which  had  previously  exhibited  vast  steppes  or 
prairies,  inhabited  by  herds  of  reindeer,  bison,  wild  oxen 
and  horses,  became  utterly  changed.  The  reindeer,  both 
because  of  the  milder  climate,  which  they  could  not  en¬ 
dure,  and  the  destruction  of  the  plains  upon  which  they 
depended,  disappeared  entirely,  perhaps  following  the 
glaciers  in  their  northern  retreat,  and  their  place  became 
taken  by  deer,  which  found  in  the  forest  a  congenial 
environment,  and  which  the  final  extinction  of  the  cave 
bears,  mostly  by  the  hand  of  man,  allowed  to  multiply 
almost  beyond  limit.  The  mammoth,  another  steppe  ani¬ 
mal,  probably  wandered  eastward  and  northward, 
finally  to  die  out  utterly,  almost  within  historic  times, 
in  his  last  strongholds  in  northern  Siberia ;  but  the  wild 
horse,  the  bison,  and  the  great  European  wild  ox, 


a  period  of  transition  to  the  Neolithic..  Osborn  sees  in  the 
Azilian-Tardenoisian  a  “revolution.”  where  all  Paleolithic  his¬ 
tory  comes  to  an  abrupt  end,  and  where  the  entrance  of  several 
new  races  prepares  the  way  for  the  Neolithic  Age. 


EUROPEAN  PREHISTORY 


1S9 


the  “Ur”  of  the  German  traditions  (Julius  Caesar’s 
“Urus”),  although  undoubtedly  reduced  in  numbers, 
were  still  to  survive.1 

To  the  prehistorian  one  of  the  most  striking  results 


Fig.  42. — Pebbles  painted  with  alphibetiform  characters.  The  two  sides  of  the 
same  pebbles  are  shown  in  three  of  the  cases,  connected  by  dotted  lines.  These 
are  samples  of  the  “galets  colorees”  of  M.  Piette,  and  occur  in  considerable 
numbers  in  the  Tourassian  (Azylian)  deposit  of  Mas  d’Azyl,  the  first  of  the  post 
glacial  deposits.  The  use  of  these  pebbles  is  unknown.  (After  Piette.) 


1  The  horse,  although  no  longer  in  a  wild  state,  readily  becomes 
practically  so  when  allowed  to  run  for  a  time  unherded  and 
unconfined,  as  in  the  great  plains  of  Hungary,  and  in  the  west¬ 
ern  United  States ;  the  European  bison,  Bison  europceus ,  exists 
now  in  the  form  of  a  few  protected  herds,  much  as  in  the  case 
of  its  American  cousin.  Bison  americanus;  but  the  great  ox, 
Bos  primigenius ,  mentioned  in  the  Nibelungenlied,  and  furnish¬ 
ing  both  name  and  coat  of  arms  to  the  canton  of  Uri,  Switzer¬ 
land,  has  become  extinct.  It  was  common  in  the  Black  Forest 
at  the  time  of  Julius  Cspsar,  and  survived  in  Poland  until  about 
the  year  1000.  Crossed  with  the  domestic  species.  Bos  taurm, 
it  has,  however,  contributed  its  blood  to  certain  breeds,  notably 
the  black  and  white  “Holstein,”  upon  which  it  has  bestowed  its 
large  size.  The  great  gray  oxen  of  southeastern  Austria  also 
may  very  likely  have  a  Urus  strain. 


190 


MAN'S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


of  this  change  is  seen  in  the  sudden  cessation  of  artistic 
power,  which  in  fact,  never  appears  again  in  the  same 
form.  The  few  drawings  definitely  ascribed  to  this  pe¬ 
riod  are  childish  in  their  execution  and  not  for  a  moment 
to  be  compared  to  those  of  the  Magdalenian.  On  the 
other  hand,  although  it  would  seem  but  a  poor  compen¬ 
sation  for  the  loss  of  artistic  power,  there  developed  an 
industry  or  pastime,  the  meaning  of  which  is  far  from 
clear. 

In  certain  of  the  deposits  of  this  period,  notable  in 
the  grotto  of  Mas  d’Azil  in  southern  France  (Ariege) 
occur  numerous  small  pebbles  of  rounded  shape,  painted 
with  bands  and  stripes  in  a  way  almost  to  suggest 
some  form  of  lettering.1  This  appearance  is  prob¬ 
ably  accidental  and  the  pebbles  may  have  been  used  in 
playing  some  sort  of  game,  or  in  magic,  pursuits  to  which 
primitive  people  are  always  prone,  and  which  occupy  an 
important  place  in  their  daily  life.  A  similar  type  of 
object  consists  of  small  flat  pieces  of  bone  of  various 
shapes,  incised  with  all  sorts  of  geometric  designs,  and 


1  Of.  the  writings  of  M.  Piette,  especially  in  L'  Anthropologic. 
T.  14.  1903,  pp.  641-6.13.  in  which  he  shows  close  similarities 
between  the  designs  upon  the  Mas  d’Azil  pebbles  and  the  primi¬ 
tive  Phoenician  and  Greek  alphabets.  This  article  is,  however, 
immediately  followed  by  another,  by  Arthur  Barnard  Cook, 
denying  the  alphabetiform  character  of  the  pebbles,  but  com¬ 
paring  them  to  the  churinga,  or  “bull-roarers,”  of  the  Austra¬ 
lians,  which  are  small  pieces  of  wood  attached  to  long  strings. 
By  whirling  these  around,  strange  sounds  are  produced  which 
the  Australians  believe  to  be  the  voices  of  their  dead.  Perhaps  a 
more  likely  comparison  is  that  of  Solomon  Reinach  ( VAnthro - 
got.  T.  20,  909,  pp.  604-605)  who  cites  a  custom  of  the  new 
extinct  Tasmanians.  These  people  used  little  stone  plates 
‘‘marked  in  various  direction  with  red  and  black  lines”  to  rep¬ 
resent  their  absent  (or  deceased?)  friends.  Aside  from  the 
collection  of  Piette.  which  contains  more  than  two  hundred  of 
these  ‘‘painted  pebbles,”  there  are  but  a  few  known. 


EUROPEAN  PREHISTORY 


191 


often  pierced  eacli  with  a  small  hole,  by  which  they 
may  have  been  strung’  on  strings. 

Indicative  of  a  more  serious  purpose  are  numerous 
harpoons,  lance-heads,  awls  and  needles,  of  stag-horn, 
which  suggest  the  association  with  the  herds  of  deer  now 
filling  the  forest,  and  give  to  this  folk  the  appellation  of 
the  “Stag-people,”  sometimes  used. 

This  period  was  founded  originally  by  de  Mortillet 
upon  remains  found  in  the  cave  of  La  Tourasse,  near  St. 
Martory  (Haute  Garonne),  France,  from  which  the  pe¬ 
riod  was  called  the  Tourassian,  but  as  the  contemporary 
deposits  of  Mas  d’Azil  have  become  more  famous,  and  are 
of  much  greater  interest,  the  alternative  name  of  Azilian 
is  now  more  usually  employed.1  Apparently  man  still 
inhabited  caves  during  the  early  part  of  the  period,  but 
soon  abandoned  them  for  the  forest  and  open  plains, 
where  he  probably  erected  some  form  of  artificial  shelter. 
Such  a  form  of  life  is  not  favorable  for  the  preservation 
of  records,  especially  as  the  distinctive  artifacts  were 
made  of  bone  and  horn,  materials  which  would  not  be 
preserved  unless  in  cave  deposits,  or  similar  places.  The 
period  has  thus  left  behind  few  definite  records,  and  one 
gets  the  impression,  which  may  or  may  not  be  true,  that 
there  was  at  this  epoch  a  marked  diminution  in  the 
human  population  of  Europe. 

It  is  probably  in  this  period,  the  Azilian,  or  in  those 


1  The  deposits  at  Mas  d’Azil,  which  have  yielded  very  many 
valuable  objects,  has  been  exploited  by  a  single  man,  Edouard 
Piette,  who  has  published  a  large  number  of  short  papers  on 
his  finds.  These  are  scattered  through  various  periodicals, 
mainly  in  UAntliropologie.  His  great  work.  “L’Art  pendant 
l’Age  du  Renne,”  an  album  of  100  plates,  appeared  in  1907 
(Paris) . 


192 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


immediately  following,  the  Flenusian  and  Tardenoisian, 
that  a  certain  type  of  cave  paintings  belongs,  which  oc¬ 
curs  in  the  same  regions  as  those  of  the  Magdalenian, 
but  is  strikingly  unlike  the  latter  in  every  detail.  Com¬ 
pared  with  the  Magdalenian  mural  paintings  these,  al¬ 
though  much  later,  are  extremely  crude,  and  differ  so 
much  from  them  in  general  style  that  they  can  easily  be 
distinguished  at  a  glance. 

In  these  paintings  there  is  always  a  perfect  bewilder¬ 
ment  of  detail,  although  there  is  evidently  an  attempt  to 
group  all  the  figures  that  occur  together  into  a  single 
picture.  The  animals,  in  which  the  stag  and  the  ox 
largely  predominate,  are  done  mostly  in  silhouette,  and 
are  conspicuous  from  the  slenderness  of  their  parts,  es¬ 
pecially  the  limbs.  The  same  is  also  true  of  the  human 
figures,  which,  unlike  the  paintings  of  earlier  ages,  are 
everywhere  met  with,  usually  in  the  act  of  shooting  at 
the  various  beasts  with  actual  bows  and  arrows.  Both 
animals  and  men  are  shown  of  very  different  sizes, 
possibly  with  the  idea  of  representing  perspective.  The 
men  are  nude,  sometimes  with  long  flowing  hair  or  some 
sort  of  headdress.  In  the  few  cases  in  which  women  are 
shown,  they  wear  what  is  unmistakably  a  long  skirt,  al¬ 
though  the  material,  whether  of  skins  or  cloth,  is  not 
clearly  indicated.  Thus  nothing  can  be  postulated  con¬ 
cerning  the  knowledge  of  weaving. 

Naturally,  as  in  all  cave  paintings,  those  of  this  type 
are  difficult  to  date.  That  they  are  very  old  is  certain 
from  several  reasons,  especially  the  fact  that  the  floor 
deposits  often  cover  up  the  lower  parts  of  the  pictures ; 
yet  several  important  points  about  the  delineations  them¬ 
selves  show  that  they  are  post-Magdalenian.  The  ani- 


Fig.  43. — Rock  painting  on  the  wall  of  a  cave  near  Cueva  de  la  Vieja,  Spain, 
half  way  between  Madrid  and  Valencia.  This  is  but  a  small  portion  of  the 
whole,  which  forms  a  confused  mass  of  men  and  animals,  the  former  gen¬ 
erally  with  drawn  bows,  suggesting  hunting  scenes.  Similar  wall  paintings 
are  found  in  many  parts  of  Spain  and  Southern  France,  and  are  far  inferior 
to  the  beautiful  mural  art  associated  with  the  Magdalenian,  although  they 
are  much  later.  In  some  ways  they  strikingly  resemble  the  art  of  the  Bush¬ 
men  of  South  Africa  to-day.  (After  Breuil,  Gomez,  and  Aguilo,  in 
L’ Anthropologie.) 


194 


MAN'S  PREHISTORIC  TAST 


mals  depicted  are  exclusively  thoce  of  the  more  modern 
times,  and  fitted  to  a  more  modern  climate ;  human  figures 
are  constantly  met  with,  and  are  commonly  depicted  in 
the  act  of  discharging  arrows  by  means  of  genuine  bows. 
The  style  of  drawing,  also,  is  vastly  cruder  than  the  art 
which  flourished  during  the  Magdalenian  Age,  and  is 
totally  unlike  it.  Sollas  has  shown,  and  most  convinc¬ 
ingly,  too,  the  close  similarity  between  these  and  the  rock 
painting  of  the  modern  Bushmen  of  South  Africa,  and, 
assuming  the  date  of  the  paintings  to  be  Aurignacian, 
has  drawn  many  parallels  between  these  two  peoples. 
This  final  conclusion  of  his  cannot  hold  if  the  paintings 
are  not  Aurignacian,  but  the  observation  of  the  similarity 
of  these  to  the  Bushman  art  is  extremely  apt,  and  points 
definitely  to  the  presence  in  Europe  of  people  of  an  al¬ 
most  identical  grade  of  culture.  Their  date  is  rather  un¬ 
certain,  but  it  will  not  be  far  wrong  to  place  it  at  about 
the  Azilian-Tardenosian,  just  previous  to  the  typical 
Neolithic. 

42.  Late  Paleolithic  Times ;  the  Kitchen-Middens. — • 
The  men  of  this  and  the  succeeding  periods  did  not,  how¬ 
ever,  live  exclusively  in  the  forests,  or  in  the  interior  of 
the  open  country,  but  frequently  encamped  upon  the  sea- 
coasts,  or  along  the  shores  of  the  extensive  lakes  which 
covered  so  much  of  the  land  area,  where  they  subsisted 
largely  upon  the  various  species  of  shellfish  which  were 
there  procurable.  As  a  by-product  of  this  form  of  life 
there  accumulated  in  such  places  enormous  masses  of 
shells,  the  almost  indestructible  residue  from  their  feasts, 
which  in  some  places  form  to-day  deposits  of  many  feet 
in  thickness,  extending  over  large  areas.  Interspersed 
among  the  shells  are  found  occasional  bones  and 


EUROPEAN  PREHISTORY 


105 


teeth  of  the  animals  eaten,  and  more  rarely  instru¬ 
ments  of  all  sorts,  either  broken  and  thrown  among  the 
refuse,  or  accidentally  dropped.  Such  refuse  heaps  form 
for  the  prehistorian  extremely  valuable  documents,  from 
which  the  mode  of  life  of  the  people  who  left  them  can 
be  readily  ascertained.  Owing  to  the  different  character 
of  fresh  and  salt-water  molluscs,  the  refuse  heaps  left 
about  the  lakes  are  inconsiderable  in  bulk  or  importance, 
but  those  deposits  along  the  sea  coasts,  composed  of  such 
bulky  shells  as  those  of  oysters  or  clams,  are  often  ex 
tensive,  and  actually  aid  in  the  formation  of  promon¬ 
tories,  small  headlands,  and  islands. 

Heaps  like  these  occur  in  all  parts  of  the  world,  but 
in  many  places,  as  along  the  Atlantic  coast  of  the  United 
States,  they  may  be  attributed  to  peoples  still  living,  in 
this  latter  case  the  Indians ;  in  Europe  these  formations 
are  prehistoric.  The  best  known  and  most  extensive  of 
these  are  found  along  the  coasts  of  the  Baltic  Sea,  where 
the  earliest  heaps  (Maglemoos)  are  about  contemporary 
with  the  Stag-people  (Azilian)  and  extend  from  that 
time  through  a  part  of  the  Neolithic.* 1  Immediately  aftei* 

1  “There  is  a  peculiar  difficulty  connected  with  the  classifica¬ 
tion  of  the  kitchen-middens  as  ‘late  Paleolithic.’  Historically 
there  is  some  ground  for  doing  so,  but  technologically  and  typo- 
logically  there  is  little  justification.  The  method  of  shaping 
rock  by  pecking  and  rubbing  goes  back  as  far  as  the  Aurigna- 
cian;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  flint  flaking  and  chipping  con¬ 
tinues  to  the  present  day  in  Europe.  On  technological  grounds, 
therefore,  we  ought  to  date  the  eolithic  from  the  Aurignacian, 
which  no  one  has  ever  proposed. 

“Typological ly.  the  problem  is  considered  simplified.  Begin¬ 
ning  with  the  Magdalenian.  there  was  a  distinct  advance  in  the 

I  one-working  industry  and  a  correspondingly  marked  decline 
in  the  flint  industry.  In  Azilian-Tardenoisian  times  the  flint 
industry  gives  the  impression  of  almost  complete  degeneration. 
There  was  an  effort  about  this  time,  or  directly  following  it, 
to  make  even  chisels  and  axes  out  of  bone  and  antler.  But 


196 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


the  final  melting  of  the  Wurm  Ice  the  present  Baltic  Sea 
was  a  landlocked  lake,  presumably  the  largest  in  Europe, 
and  filled  with  fresh  water.  This  is  shown  by  the  abund¬ 
ance  of  shells  of  fresh  water  molluscs  (Ancylus)  laid 
down  during  this  time.  At  last  the  North  Sea  broke 
through  the  land  in  many  places  (Great  and  Little  Belt, 
Ore  Sund)  and,  as  the  water  of  the  ocean  gained  entrance, 
the  oyster  and  other  marine  molluscs  replaced  those  of 
the  fresh  water.  The  Baltic  thus  became  one  of  the  great 
sources  of  food  to  the  northern  Europeans,  and  even¬ 
tually,  as  shown  by  these  refuse  heaps,  became  entirely 
surrounded  by  human  settlements.  The  Danish  prehis¬ 
torians  of  the  last  century,  whose  attention  was  early 
attracted  by  these  mounds,  called  them  “  Kjokken-mod- 
dinger,”  or  “kitchen-middens,”  and  this  name  has  been 
accepted  as  the  technical  term  for  such  formations  every¬ 
where. 

These  northern  shell  heaps,  beginning  to  be  deposited 
during  the  Azilian  Period,  and  continuing  for  many  cen¬ 
turies,  represent  for  the  most  part  that  long  transition 
period,  previous  to  the  definite  Neolithic,  during  which 
man  slowly  acquired  the  arts  used  as  criteria  of  this 
latter  age.  The  most  important  of  these  are  :  (1)  smooth 
stone  implements,  (2)  pottery,  (3)  weaving,  (4)  agri¬ 
culture,  and  (5)  the  domestication  of  animals.  These 
were  all  acquired  during  the  interval  succeeding  the 

obviously  there  was  no  real  opening  in  that  direction  and  so  in 
the  Campignian  culture,  to  which  horizon  the  shell  mounds 
clearly  belong,  we  find  the  implement  maker  on  a  new  tack.  In 
Prance  and  Denmark  at  least,  appear  rudely  flaked  types  of  both 
chisels  and  axes,  the  true  forerunners  of  the  polished  type  char¬ 
acteristic  of  the  Dolmen  and  Passage-grave  periods.  On  that 
ground  I  should  say  that  the  Neolithic,  in  its  broadest,  truest 
sense,  began  with  the  shell  mounds.” — N.  S.  Nelson. 


EUROPEAN  PREHISTORY 


197 


Azilian,  often  conveniently  designated  the  Transneo - 
lithic  Period,  and  the  clues  to  these  achievements,  the  ex¬ 
planation  of  the  initial  experiments  leading  up  to  these 
vast  results,  are  found  for  the  most  part  in  the  Scandi¬ 
navian  kitchen-middens. 

Although  numerous  objects  from  these  deposits  are 
scattered  over  the  world,  in  museums  and  collections,  the 
greater  part  of  them  are  stored  in  the  National  Museum 
at  Copenhagen,  whither  the  scholar  must  betake  himself 
for  the  best  documents  of  this  transition  period.1 

43.  Tiie  Transition  to  the  Neolithic. — Technically,  as 
embodied  in  the  name,  the  criterion  between  the  old  and 
the  new  stone  ages  (Paleolithic  and  Neolithic)  lies  in  the 
art,  possessed  by  the  latter,  of  finishing  the  entire  surface 
of  a  stone  implement  so  that  it  is  uniformly  of  a  smooth, 
or  “polished”  character,  without  a  trace  of  the  original 
flaking  by  means  of  which  it  was  at  first  shaped. 

It  is  also  to  be  emphasized  that  by  no  means  all  of  the 
stone  implements  of  this  age  were  smooth  and  polished, 


1  Based  upon  contemporary  deposits  in  other  parts  of  Europe, 
different  prehistorians  have  sought  to  divide  up  the  Transneo- 
lithic  into  a  number  of  distinct  periods,  naming  them,  after  the 
usual  manner,  from  the  geographical  locality  where  character¬ 
istic  deposits  occur.  Thus,  immediately  following  the  Azilian 
(Tourassian) ,  come  in  order  the  Flenusian  (from  Flenu ,  in  Bel¬ 
gium,  with  its  neighboring  site  Spiennes ) ,  the  Tardenoisian 
(from  Tardenois,  Aisne,  France)  and  the  Campignian  (from 
Campign/)/,  Seine-inferieure,  France).  In  strict  definition, 
the  Neo-Uthic  Age  is  characterized  by  the  smoothed  or  pol¬ 
ished  stone  artifacts  that  occur  among  its  deposits,  but  this 
character,  although  the  one  selected  for  obvious  comparison 
with  previous  times,  is  in  reality  much  less  noticeable  and  char¬ 
acteristic  of  the  period  than  a  number  of  other  newly  introduced 
advances.  Besides  the  introduction  of  polished  stone,  the  Neo¬ 
lithic  Age  witnesses  the  first  appearance  of  pottery,  of  basketry 
and  weaving,  of  the  domestication  of  animals,  and  of  agricul¬ 
ture,  together  with  the  numerous  subordinate  arts  and  indus¬ 
tries  associated  therewith. 


198 


MAX’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


expended  upon  the  essentials,  such  as  the  sharpening  of 
the  point  and  the  two  lateral  edges,  and  in  improving  the 
general  proportions. 


but  that  the  rougher  types  of  stone  artifacts  continued 
to  be  used  for  certain  purposes.  For  such  temporary 
purposes  as  arrow-heads,  for  example,  a  paleolithic  sur¬ 
face  was  good  enough,  and  the  efforts  of  the  artificer  were 


Fig.  44.— Typical  Neolithic  axes  from  Longeville,  now  in  the 
museum  at  Metz.  The  socket  axes  and  the  triangular 
ones,  tapering  to  a  point  at  one  end,  are  late  Neolithic; 
the  square  ones  are  earlier.  (After  Schumacher,  in 
Prahistorische  Zeitschrift.) 


Fig.  45. — Five  axes  from  the  Danish  kitchen-middens  of  the  transition  period,  showing  as  many  steps  in  the  conversion  of  a  paleolith 
into  a  neolith.  (Drawn  from  specimens  in  the  Smith  College  Collection.)  In  (a)  the  edge  is  improved  by  retouching,  but  with 
no  suggestion  of  polishing.  The  others  show  different  degrees  of  polishing — i.e.,  smoothing. 


200 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


It  was  thus  only  the  best  and  most  permanent  imple¬ 
ments,  like  axes  and  chisels,  that  received  the  surface 
finish,  and  this  art  was  learned,  as  the  kitchen-middens 
teach,  quite  by  accident,  and  presumably  in  a  very  short 
time. 

The  whole  process  is  well  illustrated  by  the  accom¬ 
panying  figure  (Fig.  45),  represcenting  a  series  of  axes 
from  the  kitchen-middens  of  Denmark.  In  these  it  is  at 
once  seen  that  the  process  was  inaugurated  by  a  new 
method  of  sharpening  the  blade ,  that  is,  by  a  long  rub¬ 
bing  against  another  stone,  first  upon  one  side,  cmd  then 
upon  the  other.  This  process,  having  at  first  as  its  sole 
object  the  improvement  of  the  cutting  edge  (Fig  45  b), 
became  continued  further  up  the  sides,  probably  at  first 
to  allow  the  instrument  to  slip  better  along  the  incision 
made  (Fig.  45  c).  When,  finally,  the  most  bulging  por¬ 
tion  of  the  curve  was  passed,  and  it  was  no  longer  neces¬ 
sary  for  the  efficiency  of  the  instrument  to  continue  the 
process  of  smoothing,  the  portion  remaining  was  so 
small,  and  the  smooth  surface  gave  so  much  better  an 
appearance,  that  the  surface  polishing  was  completed 
for  esthetic  reasons,  and  the  paleolith  became  a  typical 
neolith  (Fig.  45  d,  e). 

A  second  important  advance  shown  by  Neolithic  people 
is  the  art  of  making  pottery;  and  as  “ shards/ ’  or  frag¬ 
ments,  of  these  are  practically  imperishable,  and  as  such 
shards  are  naturally  rather  abundant  about  the  sites  of 
human  activity,  their  value  in  estimating  the  ago  and 
period  of  culture  of  a  given  deposit  is  very  great.  They 
have  been  well  termed  the  “ Leitfossilien,”  or  guide-fos¬ 
sils,  of  Neolithic  deposits,  and  their  presence  in  an  un¬ 
disturbed  culture  layer  must  be  taken  as  an  undoubted 


EUROPEAN  PREHISTORY 


201 


proof  that  the  layer  in  question  is  Neolithic,  or  later. 
Especially,  indeed,  as  we  come  to  post-Neolithic  times, 
shards  become  of  increasing  importance,  since,  from  the 
Bronze  Age  on  to  classic  times,  the  potter’s  art  becomes 
continually  more  differentiated.  There  thus  develops  not 
only  a  multiplicity  of  form  and  size,  subserving  a  greater 
variety  of  uses,  but  a  great  advance  in  the  method  of 
decoration  and  of  finishing  the  surface,  resulting  even¬ 
tually  in  almost  countless  types  of  pots  and  other  clay 
utensils,  the  remains  of  which  date  a  deposit  with  almost 
the  exactness  of  a  coin. 

According  to  the  ideas  of  some  prehistorians,  the  Neo¬ 
lithic  culture  was  introduced  by  an  alien  people,  presum¬ 
ably  Asiatics,  who  brought  with  them  the  art  of  pottery, 
together  with  a  knowledge  of  agriculture  and  certain 
domestic  animals,  like  the  sheep  and  goat ;  but,  as  in 
the  case  of  the  smoothing  of  the  stone  implements, 
above  cited,  there  is  plenty  of  evidence  to  show  that 
certain  of  the  arts  characteristic  of  the  Neolithic  Age 
were  gradual  and  local  in  their  development;  that  is, 
that  they  were  acquired,  in  their  simplest  form,  dur¬ 
ing  the  periods  immediately  preceding  the  definite  Neo¬ 
lithic. 

The  first  suggestions  of  modeling  objects  out  of  clay 
naturally  and  spontaneously  occur  as  the  result  of  con¬ 
stant  association  with  that  substance ;  and  as,  this  mate¬ 
rial  is  everywhere  present,  its  plastic  nature  and  its  readi¬ 
ness  to  receive  impressions  are,  for  primitive  people, 
matters  of  continual  observation.  The  deposit  on  the 
floor  of  caverns  is  usually  of  a  clayey  nature ;  clay,  too, 
is  often  associated  with  the  smaller1  water  pools,  or  with 
certain  parts  of  the  banks  of  rivers  and  ponds,  which 


202 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


are  the  especial  places  sought  by  early  man  for  his  habi¬ 
tations. 

It  must  always  be  remembered,  not  only  that  in  general 
primitive  man  comes  far  more  closely  into  contact  with 
the  phenomena  of  external  nature  than  we  do,  but  that 
the  quality  of  the  soil  walked  upon  is  a  matter  of  much 
moment  to  an  unshod  man.  He  perceives  the  least  dif¬ 
ferences  in  the  surface,  and  constantly  feels  the  ground 
with  his  naked  feet.  The  firmness  of  turf,  the  shifting 
character  of  sand,  the  slippery  nature  of  clay  are 
thus  perceived  and  differentiated  to  an  extent  impos¬ 
sible  to  realize  by  one  who,  equipped  with  shoes,  walks 
with  comparative  indifference  over  all  sorts  of  footing. 
It  is  thus  inevitable  that  the  properties  of  clay  were  well 
known  to  early  man,  and  that  when  first  he  attempted  to 
intertwine  twigs  and  branches  to  form  a  rude  shelter,  he 
would  naturally  fill  the  interstices  with  clay  to  make  the 
structure  watertight  at  the  time  of  the  heavy  rain. 

But  in  this  type  of  hut-building,  one  hardly  beyond  the 
constructive  intelligence  of  the  chimpanzee,  are  found 
the  beginning  of  the  two  twin  industries,  basketry  and 
pottery,  for  the  basket  is  but  a  specialization  of  the  twig- 
woven  shelter,  and  becomes  converted  into  a  watertight 
receptacle  by  being  lined  with  clay.  If  such  a  utensil  is 
left  accidentally  in  too  close  association  with  the  hearth 
the  fire  causes  the  clay  to  become  hard,  and  burns  away 
the  basket  at  the  same  time,  yet  leaves  in  place  of  the 
mutilated  implement  one  of  a  new  sort  that  is  much 
better  for  the  original  purpose  than  was  the  first  one  be¬ 
fore  the  accident.  When  once  thoroughly  fired,  the  ves¬ 
sel  can  be  suspended  over  the  hearth,  or  may  even  be  put 
directly  upon  the  coals,  thus  for  the  first  time-  introduc- 


EUROPEAN  PREHISTORY 


203 


ing  the  new  technique  in  cooking,  in  which  the  fire  is 
placed  beneath  the  pot  in  which  the  cooking  is  taking 
place,  and  by  doing  away  with  the  clumsy,  but  time- 
honored  method  of  boiling  by  means  of  hot  stones  placed 
in  the  pot  with  the  food. 

From  the  various  stages  of  the  pot-making  industry 
found  in  the  New  World,  whose  inhabitants  at  the  time 
of  the  discovery  were  within,  or  very  near,  the  Neolithic 
type  of  culture,  we  find  many  corroborations  of  this  theo¬ 
retical  sketch  of  the  probable  origin  of  ceramics.  In 
shell  mounds  and  other  aboriginal  sites  there  are  fre¬ 
quently  found  shards,  the  outer  surface  of  which  shows 
the  impress  of  a  mat  or  basket.  In  these  fossil  textiles 
the  stitch  of  the  original  cover  may  be  easily  recovered 
by  covering  the  marked  surface  with  wax  or  plaster,  and 
afterward  separating  it  from  the  shard.  When  this  is 
done  the  woven  textile,  in  positive  form,  appears  upon 
the  plastic  material. 

Quite  independently  of  the  method  of  developing  pots 
from  lined  baskets  comes  the  modern  Indian  method  of 
building  up  coiled  ware.  In  this  the  pot  is  made  by  coil¬ 
ing  up  in  any  desired  form  a  clay  rope,  and  then  fasten¬ 
ing  adjacent  coils  by  pinching  them  together  at  fre¬ 
quent  intervals  with  thumb  and  finger.  When  these 
pinched  places  are  properly  and  regularly  spaced  a  pleas¬ 
ing  effect  is  made,  closely  resembling  the  coiled  basket, 
from  which  it  was  evidently  derived.  As  this  form  of 
basket  is  itself  a  highly  specialized  form,  any  pot  derived 
from  it  must  also  be  of  much  later  development  than  one 
originally  derived  from  a  basket  lining,  the  basket  itself 
being  a  much  more  primitive  one. 

The  constant  and  universal  employment  of  pottery  in 


204 


MAX’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


Europe  appears  at  the  advent  of  the  Neolithic,  among 
other  new  industries;  at  the  same  time  traces  of  certain 
very  simple  pots  are  found  in  the  Campignian,  imme¬ 
diately  preceding  the  genuine  Neolithic,  and  thus  again 
the  question  confronts  us,  whether  the  art  of  making  and 
using  pottery  really  developed  in  place  on  European 
soil,  or  whether  it  was  suddenly  introduced  from  else¬ 
where. 

Concerning  the  appearance  of  domesticated  animals, 
an  important  Neolithic  characteristic,  there  is  the  same 
uncertainty  as  in  the  case  of  pottery.  In  favor  of  the 
gradual  development  in  place  are  the  numerous  indica¬ 
tions  in  the  kitchen-middens,  which  are  in  part  transi¬ 
tional,  and  are  placed  just  before  the  Neolithic,  of  a 
closer  association  of  certain  local  animals,  especially  the 
dog  and  the  pig.  The  dog  manifests  his  presence  here 
through  the  unmistakable  marks  of  his  teeth  upon  the 
bones  left  from  the  human  meals,  and  occasionally  there 
appear  his  own  remains,  together  with  those  of  two  va¬ 
rieties  of  pig,  the  little  marsh  form,  sus  scrofa  palustris, 
and,  for  the  first  time,  the  common  domesticated  form, 
sus  scrofa  domestica.  The  whole  picture  drawn  of  these 
early  dogs  is  one  of  wandering  scavengers,  living  in  a 
sort  of  spontaneous  association  with  man,  tolerated  camp 
followers,  trooping  in  after  the  meal  time,  or  by  night,  to 
feed  upon  the  refuse,  but  not  definitely  owned  or  cared 
for.  In  much  the  same  way  the  jackals  of  the  East,  and 
the  coyotes  of  western  America,  hang  about  the  camps, 
and  with  the  slightest  encouragement  would  doubtless  be¬ 
come  habitually  associated  with  a  human  tribe  or  family. 

Thus,  step  by  step,  during  the  epoch  conveniently 
styled  trans-neolithic  or  proto-neolithic,  the  cultural  ad- 


EUROPEAN  PREHISTORY 


205 


vances  characteristic  of  the  age  of  polished  stone  were 
gradually  assumed.  Whether  this  was  done  by  a  single 
European  race,  without  help  from  outside,  or  whether 
the  various  new  arts  were  gradually  introduced  from 
elsewhere,  through  commerce  or  invasion,  cannot  as  yet 
be  definitely  known.  What  we  are  sure  of,  however,  is 
that  during  the  long  period  of  time  intervening  between 
the  last  retreat  of  the  iec,  and  the  reduction  of  the  great 
system  of  post-glacial  lakes,  while  nature  was  moulding 
the  land  surface  into  its  present  form,  and  establishing 
the  existing  river  valleys  with  their  fertile  meadows,  man 
also,  with  added  powers  and  increased  knowledge,  was 
preparing  to  inhabit  the  newly  prepared  lands.  That 
last  cave  epoch  was  the  period  of  final  man-making.  As 
a  beast,  equipped  only  with  sticks  and  stones,  at  the 
mercy  of  the  forces  of  nature,  and  driven  by  the  resist¬ 
less  advance  of  the  cold,  he  enters  the  caves  for  his  long 
schooling;  he  emerges  from  these  retreats  a  man,  fur¬ 
nished  with  a  great  variety  of  well-shaped  tools,  fabri¬ 
cated  of  many  materials,  and  with  already  the  arts  of 
the  potter  and,  perhaps,  those  of  the  weaver  also. 

No  longer  has  he  to  fight  with  gigantic  and  fearsome 
brutes  for  the  necessities  of  life,  but  as  he  advances  boldly 
out  over  the  country,  now  freed  for  human  occupancy, 
there  follow  in  his  train  his  two  first  animal  friends,  the 
one  a  companion,  the  other  a  serf — the  dog  and  the  pig. 
With  these  strange  attendants  he  seeks  two  sorts  of  sit¬ 
uations,  the  rich  alluvial  meadows  and  the  shores  of  the 
mountain  lakes,  and  there  constructs  for  himself  definite 
artificial  shelters,  in  each  place  of  a  kind  suited  to  the 
special  environment.  To  these  new  sites  he  brings  his 
new-found  arts;  in  the  peace  of  his  environment  he 


206 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


further  elaborates  and  develops  them,  and  adds  others. 
He  learns  the  uses  of  many  plants  hitherto  unknown,  and 
seeks  to  lighten  his  labors  by  planting  them  near  his 
/home;  he  domesticates  the  goat  and  the  sheep,  and  even 
casts  his  ambitious  eyes  toward  the  wild  oxen  and  horses, 
wondering  if  perchance  their  untrained  strength  may  not 
become  of  use  to  him ;  he  finds  that  flax  and  wool  furnish 
the  possibility  of  making  long  threads  which  can  be  used 
in  forming  softer  and  more  pliable  textures.  The  world, 
now  fully  open,  constantly  adds  to  its  gifts  and  increases 
its  opportunities,  and  man  thus  passes  into  the  light  of 
the  Neolithic. 

44.  The  Neolithic  Age;  Modes  of  Living . — It  has  just 
been  said  that  early  Neolithic  man  selected  for  his  habi¬ 
tation  the  two  environments  now  offered,  the  alluvial 
plains  of  the  river  valleys  and  the  shores  of  the  moun¬ 
tain  lakes.  The  first,  with  its  fertile  and  mellow  soil 
and  its  extensive  areas  of  meadow  grass,  developed  its 
inhabitants  into  agriculturalists  and  herdsmen;  the  sec¬ 
ond  produced  a  race  of  fishermen.  Along  the  river  mead¬ 
ows  the  inhabitants  established  permanent  farmsteads, 
and  the  retentive  soil  still  retains  the  traces  of  their  foun¬ 
dation  posts  and  their  simple  excavations.1  From  space 
occupied  by  the  dwelling  itself  the  surface  earth  was 
removed,  except  in  places  in  which  it  was  left,  or  even 
built  up  in  square  form,  to  serve  as  seats  and  couches. 
The  fires  were  confined  to  a  definite  hearth,  with  often  an 
earthen  bench  or  couch  in  front  of  it.  The  details  of  the 
superstructure  cannot  be  exactly  determined,  save  that 
the  ground  plan  was  surrounded  by  posts  set  at  intervals. 


1  Cf.  the  previous  chapter,  §  15,  and  especially  Fig.  12. 


EUROPEAN  PREHISTORY 


207 


From  the  study  of  primitive  architecture  still  extant, 
also,  the  inference  is  strong  that  these  posts  were  con¬ 
nected  by  horizontally  or  obliquely  placed  crosspieces, 
bound  on  by  sinews  or  by  some  vegetable  fiber,  and  that 
a  similar  framework  formed  a  low  roof.  Upon  such  a 
substructure  a  thatch  of  branches  could  be  woven,  and 
made  tight  by  the  addition  of  clay,  or  perhaps  adobe, 
or  else  the  frame  may  have  been  covered  by  coarse  mats, 
as  with  the  Indians  of  New  England.  In  some  cases  the 
establishments  were  very  extensive,  occasionally  even  re¬ 
sembling  the  famous  long  houses  of  the  Iroquois;  and 
judging  from  the  artifacts  found  in  association  with  such 
sites — for  example,  spindle  whorls  and  loom  knives  in 
one,  agricultural  tools  in  another — it  is  probable  that 
the  houses  were  sometimes  apportioned  according  to  sexes, 
as  is  common  among  primitive  peoples  everywhere.  An 
entire  settlement  of  this  sort,  consisting  of  a  cluster  of 
huts  and  houses  of  different  sorts  and  employed  for  dif¬ 
ferent  uses,  placed  close  together,  was  often  surrounded 
by  a  ditch  and  palisade,  as  a  protection  from  ravenous 
beasts  and  human  enemies;  and  thus  formed  in  itself  a 
political  unit,  independent  and  isolated,  save  by  occa¬ 
sional  temporary  alliances  with  neighboring  clusters,  the 
forerunner  of  the  walled  city  (Cf.  §  25). 

Such  farms,  or  compounds,  consisting  each  of  several 
associated  buildings,  were  isolated  from  each  other,  and 
placed  in  the  middle  of  extensive  fields  which  offered  graz¬ 
ing  facilities  for  the  flocks  and  herds.  Here  they  kept, 
in  tame  or  semi-tame  conditions,  the  herbivorous  animals 
which  they  succeeded  in  domesticating — first  the  goat, 
then  the  sheep,  and  later  on  the  lesser  ox,  Bos  taurus. 
The  pig  and  dog  were  the  more  intimate  associates  of 


208 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


their  dwellings,  and  only  the  fowls  and  cats  of  the  mod¬ 
ern  farm  were  missing.  Some  obscurity  still  lies  about 
the  origin  of  many  of  these  domesticated  animals,  since 
certain  of  them,  like  the  goat,  the  sheep,  and  the  taurus 
species  of  ox  seem  to  have  originated  from  wild  species 
that  were  Asiatic,  and  not  European.  This  is  one  of 
the  supports  of  the  hypothesis  that  the  Neolithic  civil¬ 
ization  did  not  develop  upon  the  European  continent, 
but  that  it  was  introduced  rather  suddenly  by  invasions 
from  Asia,  and  that  the  invaders  brought  with  them 
their  already  domesticated  flocks  and  herds,  as  well  as  the 
new  arts  of  pottery  and  weaving.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  transitions  in  the  artifacts  seem  to  have  been  grad¬ 
ual,  and  the  way  was  so  well  prepared  for  the  character¬ 
istic  Neolithic  arts  at  the  time  they  appeared,  as  to 
suggest  forcibly  that  the  changes  were  spontaneous  and 
accomplished  in  situ.  It  is  quite  as  easy  to  believe 
that  the  European  inhabitants,  having  already  achieved 
their  initial  successes  in  domesticating  native  animals, 
notably  the  pig  and  the  dog,  obtained  these  more  service¬ 
able  Asiatic  forms  through  a  primitive  commerce,  the 
simplest  and  earliest  of  human  intertribal  associations; 
or  that,  perhaps,  they  were  introduced  by  one  or  more 
small  invasions,  not  of  great  geographical  extent  or 
ethnological  importance.  Whatever  their  origin,  the  im¬ 
portant  fact  remains  that  these  animals  were  introduced 
as  domestic  forms  at  the  beginning  of  the  Neolithic  Age, 
and  that  they  effected  a  complete  transformation  in  the 
life  of  the  people  of  Europe  everywhere. 

Hitherto  wandering  hunters,  without  fixed  abodes,  liv¬ 
ing  in  tents  in  summer  and  in  caves  in  winter,  the  in¬ 
habitants  of  Europe  had  no  possessions  save  those  which 


EUROPEAN  PREHISTORY 


200 


they  could  take  with  them  at  a  moment’s  notice.  Hence 
they  had  little  to  defend,  and  there  was  but  slight  in¬ 
ducement  to  attack  others  save  in  personal  quarrels.  But 
with  the  establishment  of  fixed  farms,  which  include  a 
large  variety  of  specialized  utensils,  and  form  the  center 
of  extensive  pastures,  covered  with  flocks  and  herds, 
there  is  not  only  much  to  be  defended,  but  a  great  in¬ 
ducement  to  make  raids. 

There  thus  developed  defensive  works  along  several 
lines,  the  most  important  of  which  are  fortified  hills, 
“ schar rachs”  (§18),  and  islands  of  firm  land  in  the 
midst  of  swamps,  “ crannogs”  (§  17).  It  must  have  been 
also  because  of  the  danger  of  organized  attack  from 
their  fellow  men  that  there  developed  that  other  main 
type  of  Neolithic  habitation,  the  lake  dwelling,  or  lake 
village  (§  16).  Naturally  the  method  of  life  among  the 
lake  dwellers  must  in  many  wa}rs  have  been  different 
from  that  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  plains;  they  could 
have  a  few  herds,  for  in  nearly  all  the  spots  in  Europe 
where  lake  dwellings  exist,  precipitous  mountains  rise 
from  the  shore  and  shut  the  inhabitants  off  from  graz¬ 
ing  lands.  They  thus  possessed  neither  milk,  cheese, 
wool,  nor  the  flesh,  skins,  and  other  valuable  products 
furnished  by  flocks  and  herds.  Their  main  wealth  con¬ 
sisted  of  the  fish  which  the  waters  of  the  lake  brought 
to  their  very  doors.  But  a  most  valuable  asset  consisted 
of  their  well-nigh  absolute  security  from  attack,  since, 
with  the  drawbridges  up,  collected  within  their  houses, 
and  with  the  lake  to  furnish  an  inexhaustible  supply 
both  of  food  and  water,  an  army  of  invaders,  without 
boats,  and  with  crude  missile  weapons,  could  do  little 
or  nothing.  On  the  other  hand,  with  a  monopoly  of  the 


210 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


fish  supply,  which  they  would  early  learn  to  dry  and 
smoke  and  thus  convert  into  a  commercial  product,  they 
would  be  of  great  value  to  their  agricultural  neighbors, 
who  would  willingly  exchange  their  wool,  their  cheeses, 
and  their  hides,  for  produce  of  the  lakes.  Men  could  no 
longer  remain  isolated,  but  those  of  different  families, 
and  from  different  regions,  were  becoming  mutually  de¬ 
pendent  upon  one  another,  banded  together  by  commer¬ 
cial  relations,  and  forced  often  to  defend  their  interests 
against  a  common  foe.1 

45.  The  Neolithic  Age ;  the  Art  of  Weaving. — Until 
the  dawn  of  the  Neolithic  Age  the  deeds  performed  and 
recorded  are  essentially  those  achieved  by  men,  or  at 
least  by  women  working  in  a  masculine  way,  the  killing 
of  huge  beasts,  and  the  fighting  with  other  men.  But  from 
about  this  time  appears  the  finer  touch  of  the  woman’s 
hand,  traces  of  the  manifold  activities  connected  with 
the  home,  and  the  beginnings  of  the  refinements  and  com¬ 
forts  which  woman  has  ever  sought.  Perhaps  the  first 
division  of  labor  came  with  the  establishment  of  the  first 
hearth,  when  “the  woman  stayed  by  the  fire  to  keep  it 
alive  while  the  man  went  to  the  field  or  the  forest  for 
game,”2  and  perhaps  it  is  from  this  beginning,  sur¬ 
rounded  by  different  objects,  that  the  two  sexes  have  ever 
become  more  and  more  differentiated.  “In  contact  with 
the  animal  world,  and  ever  taking  lessons  from  them, 

1  For  the  lake-dwellings,  during  both  the  Neolithic  and  Bronze 
Ages,  two  excellent  works  are  those  of  Ferd.  Keller.  “The  Lake 
Dwellings  of  Switzerland,  etc.,”  and  Robt.  Munro,  “The  Lake 
Dwellings  of  Europe.”  The  tormer  is  the  older  work,  and  in 
the  English  translation  appeared  in  1S7S  (Longmans,  Green, 
and  Co.)  ;  the  other  is  more  recent,  1S90,  and  is  published  by 
Cassell  and  Co.  London. 

2  Frederick  Starr,  in  the  Editor's  Preface  to  Mason,  loc.  cit. 


EUROPEAN  PREHISTORY 


211 


men  watched  the  tiger,  the  bear,  the  fox,  the  falcon, 
learned  their  language  and  imitated  them  in  ceremonial 
dances.  But  the  women  were  instructed  by  the 
spiders,  the  nest-builders,  the  storers  of  food,  and  the 


Fig.  46. — Neolithic  shards  from  Rudigheim,  Germany;  typical  pieces  with  incised 
ornamentation.  They  are  strikingly  similar  to  those  found  in  the  shell  heaps 
and  cliff-dwellings  of  the  United  States  and  represent  a  culture  similar  to 
that  of  our  American  Indians.  (After  Wolff,  in  Prahistorische  Zeitschrift.) 


212 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


workers  in  clay  like  the  mud  wasp  and  termites.  ’  ’ 1 
So  that,  from  almost,  if  not  quite,  the  beginning,  while 
the  men  have  cultivated  the  arts  of  war  and  the 
chase,  woman  has  worked  with  equal  assiduity  and  far 
more  patience  in  cultivating  the  arts  of  peace.  Not 
only  did  she  learn  to  prepare  the  booty  brought  in  from 
hunting,  and  soften  the  meat  by  means  of  the  fire 
which  she  had  learned  to  use,  but  it  was  she,  and  not  her 
lord,  who  found  out  the  virtues  of  the  plant  world,  the 
grains  hidden  away  in  the  chaff  and  the  roots  concealed 
in  the  earth,  and  learned,  not  only  to  find  them,  but  to 
prepare  them  by  drying,  grinding,  boiling,  baking,  and 
other  processes.  It  was  she  who  prepared  garments  and 
tent  covers  from  the  skins  of  beasts ;  it  was  through  her 
patience  that  many  of  the  domestic  animals  were  tamed, 
and  always,  in  the  midst  of  all  these  manifold  duties  and 
employments,  appeared  her  constant  duty  and  highest 
joy,  the  rearing  of  children.  And  now,  some  time 
after  the  final  retreat  of  the  glaciers,  she  adds  two  more 
of  her  contributions,  the  sister  arts  of  weaving  and 
pottery. 

Throughout  the  middle  Paleolithic,  that  Golden  Age 
of  the  troglodyte,  man  still  clothed  himself  with  skins, 
clumsily  sewed  together  by  the  help  of  bone  awls,  and 
fastened  along  the  edges  by  bone  or  ivory  studs.  But 
from  the  beginning  of  the  Neolithic  there  appear  textile 
fabrics  of  various  sorts,  including  baskets,  mattings  and 
cloths,  objects  which  differ  from  each  other  mainly  in 
the  materials  employed.  In  some  few  favored  cases,  im¬ 
bedded  in  the  clay  of  the  pile  villages,  or  in  the  peat  of 


1  Otis  T.  Mason.  “Woman’s  Share  in  Primitive  Culture.” 
New  York.  1899,  pp.  2-3.  In  studying  woman’s  part  in  cultural 
development  this  book  is  invaluable. 


10 

Fig.  47. — Implements  and  other  objects  associated  with  Neolithic  textile  indus- 
dustry,  found  on  the  site  of  Swiss  lake  dwellings.  (1)  and  (2),  bone  imple¬ 
ments  for  hackling  flax;  (3),  wooden  spindle  with  thread  still  on  it;  (4)  and 
(7),  warp  stretchers  of  burnt  clay;  (5),  flax  hackle  made  of  bone  points, 
bound  together  with  twine;  (6),  wooden  crochet-hook;  (8)  spindle-whorl  of 
baked  clay;  (9),  bone  bodkin;  (10)  piece  of  baked  clay,  bearing  the  im¬ 
pression  of  a  mat  of  bast  fiber;  (10a),  cast  taken  from  the  above,  enlarged, 
Showing  the  stitch.  (After  Forrer. ) 


214 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


the  Danish  moors,  actual  fragments  of  such  textiles  have 
been  recovered  even  from  Neolithic  times;  in  numerous 
other  cases  they  have  made  their  impression  upon  clay, 
from  which,  by  application  of  some  plastic  substance, 
the  appearance  of  the  original  textile  may  be  recovered ; 
and  lastly,  numerous  objects  employed  in  the  manufac¬ 
ture  of  textiles,  like  spindles,  spindle  whorls,  and  por¬ 
tions  of  looms,  bear  an  indirect  but  certain  testimony 
to  the  existence  of  the  art. 

By  the  aid,  in  part,  of  such  remains,  and  in  great  part 
also  by  observing  the  methods  of  weaving  still  employed 
by  primitive  peoples,  and  studying,  not  merely  the  final 
products,  but  the  character  of  the  instruments  em¬ 
ployed  in  the  process,  the  prehistorian  is  able  clearly  to 
sketch  the  gradual  development  of  the  textile  art,  and 
recover  the  details  of  the  industry  as  practiced  by  the 
Neolithic  people.  Both  this,  and  the  art  of  pottery,  in 
their  beginnings  closely  associated,  were  in  every  step 
the  achievement  of  women,  and  took  their  beginning  in 
the  attempt  at  employing  flexible  twigs  in  house  con¬ 
struction.  The  chimpanzees  and  orang-utans  of  the  pres¬ 
ent  day  construct  for  themselves  serviceable  nests,  and 
twine  above  them  the  smaller  branches,  clumsily  inter¬ 
lacing  them  as  best  they  may,  with  thick  fingers  and  in¬ 
ferior  brain.  But  even  the  Paleolithic  woman  was  far 
above  this,  and,  in  her  twig-twining  there  soon  grew  be¬ 
neath  her  supple  fingers  a  definite  system,  by  which,  per¬ 
haps,  one  set  of  twigs  interlocked  in  a  fairly  regular 
fashion  with  a  set  in  the  opposite  direction.  Such  a 
structure  once  constructed,  she  daubs  with  clay  to  make 
it  tighter  and  thus  creates  the  precursor  of  both  the  basket 
and  the  pot.  Constructed  like  the  hut,  but  made  small 


EUROPEAN  PREHISTORY 


215 


and  fastened  to  the  back,  the  basket  greatly  facilitated 
her  work  of  burden  bearing,  and  the  same  receptacle, 
lined  with  clay,  made  a  utensil  capable  of  transporting 
and  storing  water,  thus  solving  one  of  the  greatest  prob¬ 
lems  of  early  man.  Developing  still  further  along  this 
line,  the  new-found  art  was  applied  to  the  construction 
of  large  mats,  with  which  to  clothe  the  ground  of  the 
hut,  or  throw  upon  the  rude  earthen  couch  ;  and  in  search¬ 
ing  the  forest  for  plant  stems,  the  characteristics  of  the 
fibers  of  flax  were  discovered.  In  some  way,  too,  the 
peculiar  virtue  of  sheep’s  wool,  at  first  left  upon  the 
hide  and  employed  like  other  furs,  became  noticed — 
how  that  by  twisting  small  tufts  of  wool  between  thumb 
and  finger  they  become  readily  drawn  out  into  threads, 
and  this  perfectly  natural  motion  was  probably  often 
indulged  in  at  idle  moments,  perhaps  while  lying  upon 
couches  enriched  by  the  hides  of  the  now  domestic  sheep, 
before  the  idea  was  seized  upon  and  definitely  applied. 
A  fairly  good  yarn  may  be  made  by  the  fingers  alone,  but 
the  twisting  can  be  much  more  easily  and  rapidly  accom¬ 
plished  by  the  use  of  something  that  can  be  made  to 
rotate  after  the  principle  of  a  top,  and  thus  came  the 
spindle  and  the  spindle  whorl.  The  addition  of  a  dis¬ 
taff,  or  stick  to  hold  the  unspun  wool,  is  now  all  that 
is  required  to  finish  a  spinning  outfit  such  as  is  still  uni¬ 
versal  in  southeastern  Europe,  which  the  women  employ 
while  standing  about  in  the  fields  watching  the  cattle 
and  sheep,  or  in  the  intervals  of  rest  at  home.1  The 

Hn  modern  Greece  the  distaff  is  called  Qoxa  (Ital.  roca,  Ger. 
rock,  in  Spinnrock)  ;  the  spindle  is  &8edxxi,  a  word  anciently 
used  for  arrow ;  and  the  spindle  whorl  is  oqpovgiAio'v-  The  two 
latter  objects  are  respectively  identical  with  the  fusns  and 
vorticellum  of  the  Romans. 


Fig.  48. — Stone  necklace  from  a  Neolithic  necropolis  near  Hanau,  Ger¬ 
many.  The  bodies  had  been  cremated.  Upon  this  site,  above  the 
remains  of  the  Neolithic  Age,  were  found  successively  deposits  of 
the  Bronze  Age,  the  Hallstatt  and  La  Tene  Periods,  and  above  these 
the  remains  of  a  Roman  villa.  (After  Wolff  in  Prahistorische  Zeit- 
chrift.) 


EUROPEAN  PREHISTORY 


217 


women  of  modern  Bosnia  and  Dalmatia  raise  their 
sheep,  shear  and  clean  the  wool,  spin  it  into  yarn  with 
spindle  and  distaff,  dye  it  with  native  dyes  which  they 
obtain  from  local  plants,  and  finally  weave  it  into 
fabrics,  with  which  they  clothe  the  family,  producing 
beautiful  results  with  the  identical  method  perfected 
in  early  Neolithic  times. 

In  weaving  the  new-found  and  pliant  textiles,  flax  and 
wool,  the  old  and  simple  stitches,  learned  in  basket  mak¬ 
ing,  were  undoubtedly  the  first  to  be  employed,  but  the 
greater  virtues  of  these  finer  and  more  flexible  materials 
offered  more  possibilities,  which  the  Neolithic  women 
were  not  slow  to  take  advantage  of ;  and  it  may  be  as¬ 
sumed  that  the  fabrics  developed  in  the  valleys  of  the 
Rhine  and  the  Danube,  when  the  horse  was  still  free,  and 
when  the  earth  had  not  yielded  up  its  metals,  rivaled  in 
beauty  the  products  of  the  modern  peasantry  in  coun¬ 
tries  where  the  primitive  methods  are  still  employed. 
The  inherent  love  of  decoration,  which  caused  the  men 
of  Paleolithic  times  to  paint  their  bodies  with  ochre  and 
chalk,  and  to  hang  about  their  necks  chains  of  shells  or 
pendants  formed  of  bear  teeth,  must  have  bloomed  in 
these  happier  times  into  resplendent  costumes,  consist¬ 
ing  of  shirts,  aprons  and  cloaks.  Something,  indeed,  is 
already  known  concerning  the  Neolithic  dress  from  cer¬ 
tain  terra  cotta  figurines,  the  markings  on  which  plainly 
indicate  clothing,  and  much  is  suggested  by  the  costumes 
of  the  modern  peasantry  in  the  southeast,  probably  the 
direct  lineal  descendants  of  Neolithic  garments.1 


1  The  fundamental  garment  for  women,  as  developed  in 
Europe,  is  the  shirt,  without  sleeves,  and  coing  about  to 
the  knees ;  this  is  made  more  complete  by  the  use  of  either  a 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


21S 

It  is  also  to  be  remembered  that,  aside  from  the  art 
strictly  termed  weaving ,  opportunity  was  given,  now  that 
flax  and  wool  were  utilized,  for  greater  development  of 
the  allied  branches  of  sewing ,  knotting,  and  braiding, 
and  there  is  some  definite  indication  that  even  embroid¬ 
ery  was  not  wanting.  Back  in  the  Magdalenian  are 
found  slender  bone  and  ivory  needles,  equipped  with 
an  eye  at  one  end ;  and  with  such  a  tool  the  modern 
style  of  sewing  became  possible,  replacing  the  more 
primitive  method  of  first  boring  a  hole  with  an  awl 
and  then  putting  the  thread  through  with  the  fingers. 
The  needle  thus  came  a  long  time  before  linen  thread 


single  heavy  apron  in  front,  or  two  of  them,  one  in  front,  and 
one  behind.  These  aprons,  still  found  in  the  country  parts 
of  Greece,  Macedonia,  and  Dalmatia,  are  unshaped  squares  of 
wool,  about  two  and  a  half  feet  long  by  two  broad,  woven  of  gay 
colors  and  in  intricate  patterns.  At  the  upper  end  the  sides  are 
folded  over  a  little,  making  the  square  a  bit  narrower  at  the 
waist.  These,  although  thick  and  heavy,  are  worn  summer  and 
winter,  the  lower  part  of  the  shirt  serving  as  a  petticoat.  The 
next  step  was  undoubtedly  the  formation  of  a  skirt,  by  sewing 
together  the  free  edges  of  the  apron,  and  in  this  way  the  essen¬ 
tial'  pieces  of  European  woman’s  costume  became  established. 
For  men  the  fundamental  garment  was  also  a  shirt,  made  a 
little  tighter  than  that  of  the  women,  and,  as  it  was  often  the 
sole  garment  except  the  breech-cloth,  it  was  usually  colored  and 
bordered,  the  Roman  “tunic”  and  the  Greek  iqdxiov-  The 
garment  over  this  was  not  an  apron,  but  a  loose  web  of  cloth, 
or  shawl,  folded  and  wrapped  as  the  wearer  desired,  the  “toga” 
of  the  Romans,  and  the  of  the  Greeks.  In  both 

sexes  shoes  and  stockings  were  developed  independently  of 
I  he  rest,  and  in  southern  Europe  have  been,  until  recently, 
of  little  consequence.  Naturally  the  shoe  is  much  the  earliest, 
in  the  form  of  either  a  sandal  or  a  moccasin,  the  first  a  thick 
sole  made  of  wood  or  leather  strapped  to  the  foot,  the  second 
a  leather  bag,  without  much  success  at  shaping,  the  opanka  of 
the  modern  Croatian  peasant.  These  have  always  been  worn 
far  more  by  the  men  than  by  the  women,  since  the  former  go 
over  rough  new  country,  while  the  latter  walk  mainly  along 
well  worn  paths,  in  farmyards  and  cleared  pastures,  and  in 
the  house. 


49.  Decoiated  Neolithic  pottery  from  the  Laibach  moor  in  Carniola,  Jugoslavia.  (After  Forrer.) 


220 


STAN'S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


was  found,  and  while  the  woman  of  the  late  Paleo¬ 
lithic  had  probably  nothing  better  to  sew  with  than 
the  sinews  of  animals,  their  Neolithic  granddaughters, 
equipped  with  the  same  needle,  but  with  a  vastly  im¬ 
proved  thread,  could  naturally  apply  this  art  far  more 
effectually. 

46.  The  Neolithic  Age ;  the  Ceramic  Art. — We  have 
already  derived  the  primitive  basket  from  the  walls  and 
roof  of  the  woven  hut,  and  have  seen  how  such  a  basket 
lined  with  clay,  serves  as  a  receptacle  for  water.  Such 
a  receptacle,  with  the  enclosed  water  kept  at  a  boiling 
temperature  by  the  introduction  of  stones  heated  in 
the  fire — the  primitive  method — would  serve  as  an  ideal 
boiling  pot,  and  would  replace  the  more  primitive  hol¬ 
low  in  the  clay  floor,  or  the  similar  one  in  other  sorts 
of  soil,  lined  with  a  piece  of  hide.  But  the  natural 
result  of  heat  in  hardening  the  clay  itself  would  not 
long  escape  notice,  and  soon  the  fire  might  be  used 
directly  for  this  purpose.  At  first  no  one  knew  how 
to  make  a  pot  without  a  preliminary  basket,  but  the 
effect  of  heat  would  be  not  only  to  harden  the  clay 
more  and  more,  but  to  burn  off  the  wicker-work,  and 
leave  the  hardened  clay  by  itself.  Thus  by  accident 
the  pot,  apart  from  the  basket,  became  a  reality,  and, 
although  it  still  required  many  generations  of  early 
artisans  to  learn  to  build  a  pot  directly,  without  weav¬ 
ing  a  basket  first,  yet  it  was  learned  eventually,  and 
the  trade  of  the  potter  became  an  independent  calling. 

As  the  early  pots  naturally  showed  the  impression  of 
the  basket  which  then  surrounded  them,  the  art  of  con¬ 
structing  a  pot  directly  from  the  clay  produced  so  smooth 
and  bare  looking  a  result  that  the  need  was  felt  of  re- 


EUROPEAN  PREHI STORY 


921 


lieving  this  by  imitating  the  former  stitch,  and  there  thus 
arose  the  art  of  pot  decoration.  In  primitive  cases  this 
took  the  form  of  stamping  the  surface  with  little  paddles 
wound  with  strips  of  sinew,  imitating  weaving;  sometimes 
the  surface  was  rolled  over  with  little  wooden  wheels  or 
cylinders  with  notched  edges  or  surfaces  or  in  still  other 
cases  the  lost  basket  impression  was  suggested  by  lines 
made  freehand.  It  appears,  too,  that  the  earlier  pots, 
being  rather  fragile,  were  often  protected  by  enclosing 
them  in  a  bag  made  of  a  circular  piece  of  skin,  which  was 


Fig.  50. — Two  methods  of  suspending  a  Neolithic  pot,  from  which 
certain  of  the  characteristics  of  the  ornamentation  may  have 
been  derived.  (After  Forrer.) 


drawn  up  over  the  top  at  regular  intervals,  forming 
points  by  which  the  pot  could  be  suspended.  This  en¬ 
closing  case  naturally  marked  the  soft  surface  of  the 
clay  in  a  diagonal  zigzag  line,  and  developed  points  and 
triangles  near  the  top ;  and  this  pattern,  also,  the  Neo¬ 
lithic  potters  often  imitated  by  lines  traced  with  the  bone, 
so  often,  in  fact,  that  decoration  on  the  basis  of  trian- 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  TAST 


009 

gular  areas  became  one  of  the  ruling  motives  among  early 
pottery.  The  accidental  markings  made  by  the  fingers 
suggested  frequently  the  use  of  these  ever  present  tools 
for  decorating,  and  many  a  woman  in  a  Neolithic  farm¬ 
stead  has  left  this  form  of  personal  record ;  sometimes  a 
row  of  small  round  concavities,  or  dells ;  sometimes  the 
parenthesis-like  curve  of  the  finger  nail,  repeated  as  a 
row  of  parallel  curved  lines.  The  typical  handle,  or 
‘ 1  ear,  ’  ’  in  the  form  of  a  loop,  so  indispensable  in  the  jars 
and  pitchers  of  to-day,  was  a  Neolithic  achievement, 
and  its  development  may  be  found  in  all  of  its  stages,  in 
any  large  Neolithic  deposit.  At  first  a  mere  raised  or¬ 
nament,  or  low  knob,  repeated  at  frequent  intervals 
around  the  shoulder  of  the  jar,  it  soon  became  of  use  in 
the  attachment  of  the  cords  that  suspended  the  pot  above 
the  fire.  This  use  naturally  developed  these  knobs  in 
size  and  amount  of  projection,  but  reduced  their  num¬ 
ber,  until  they  became  limited  to  four,  or  even  three,  to 
which  the  suspensory  cords  were  directly  attached. 
When  this  stage  was  reached,  the  attachment  was  made 
still  easier  by  boring  a  hole  through  the  knob,  and  such 
a  hole,  accidentally  made  and  large  enough  to  admit 
the  finger,  proved  of  value  in  lifting  the  pot  with  the 
hands.  The  final  step  from  this  point  consists  mainly 
in  enlarging  the  hole,  with  the  attendant  changes  in 
the  form  and  size  of  the  entire  knob,  and  the  handle, 
as  used  to-day,  is  finished. 

The  development  in  form,  although  not  very  extensive 
in  comparison  with  a  later  date,  still  showed,  during  the 
Neolithic,  more  than  an  initial  activity.  Once  away  from 
the  limitations  of  the  early  basket,  the  form  was  limited 
only  by  the  physical  properties  of  the  clay  and  the  ability 


ET '  ROPE  AX  PR  E  H I  STORY 


223 


of  the  potter,  and  thus  a  series  of  forms  developed, 
ranging  from  tall  jars  to  flat  saucer,  some  restricted 
above  into  a  neck,  others  cylindrical,  or  flaring.  The 
inconvenience  of  the  round  bottom,  the  more  primitive 
form,  became  early  manifest,  and  the  defect  was  reme¬ 
died  sometimes  by  the  addition  of  knob-like  legs,  as  in 
certain  types  of  modern  iron  kettles,  or  sometimes  by 
setting  the  pot  into  a  ring  of  clay,  and  welding  the  two 
together.  This  last  soon  developed  into  a  flat  bottom, 
with  a  slight  flare  at  the  edges. 

Thus,  although  certain  methods  of  finish  and  decora¬ 
tion,  unknown  to  the  people  of  the  Neolithic,  were  the 
product  of  later  ages,  and  although  the  introduction  of 
the  potter’s  wheel  was  to  revolutionize  the  method  of 
manufacture,  it  is  yet  seen  that  the  main  lines  of  later 
development  were  already  laid  down,  and  that  certain 
of  the  essential  features,  introduced  at  that  time,  were 
not  to  be  improved,  even  at  the  present  day. 

47.  The  Neolithic  Age ;  Masculine  Activities. — While 
now  the  women  of  the  Neolithic  Age  were  developing 
the  arts  of  agriculture,  weaving  and  pottery,  and  domes¬ 
ticating  and  caring  for  the  most  essential  of  the  domes¬ 
tic  animals,  the  men  were  far  from  idle. 

For  them  there  were  still,  as  ever,  the  pursuits  of  hunt¬ 
ing  and  fishing,  the  providing  for  defense  against  their 
enemies,  and  ’an  occasional  raid  against  those  of  their 
neighbors  with  whom  they  had,  fancied  that  they  had,  or 
perhaps  hoped  to  have,  some  grievance.  It  was  true  that 
owing  to  the  valiant  struggles  of  their  predecessors, 
there  was  no  longer  the  menace  of  dangerous  brutes,  for 
the  cave-bear  was  long  since  dead,  and  save  for  an  occa¬ 
sional  encounter  with  an  infuriated  ur,  or  an  elk  at  bay, 


Fig.  51. — Neolithic  arrow  heads  and  other  stone  implements  from  Swiss  lake 
dwellings.  No.  5  is  still  covered  with  asphalt,  used  for  attaching  the  stone 
to  the  wooden  shaft,  and  No.  11  is  a  stone  knife  or  saw,  still  fastened  to 
its  wooden  handle  by  the  same  substance.  (After  Forrer.) 


EUROPEAN  PREHISTORY 


225 


hunting  had  well-nigh  sunk  to  the  level  of  a  routine 
trade;  yet,  true  to  the  instincts  of  the  race,  with  the 
general  advance  along  other  lines,  the  arts  of  war,  as 
practiced  against  their  fellow  men,  became  developed 
also ;  and  the  men  whose  descendants  of  the  distant  future 
were  to  deck  their  ships  with  steel  plates,  and  equip 
them  with  high  explosives  and  terrific  engines  of  whole¬ 
sale  destruction,  were  not  remiss  in  matching  cunning 
and  strength  with  one  another  in  improved  methods  of 
attack  and  defense.  It  was  mostly  men  of  Neolithic 
times  who  erected,  over  vast  districts  in  Europe,  those 
fortresses  or  ref  ugia,  which  consist  of  improving  the  de¬ 
fensive  strength  of  natural  hills  by  means  of  walls  and 
ramparts  and  the  structures  variously  known  as  schar- 
raehs,  wallburge,  hradiste,  etc.,  previously  mentioned 
(§§  17,  18,  42)  and  many  of  the  crannogs  or  fortified 
islands,  also,  although  used  by  later  men,  were  originally 
built  up  and  fortified  during  the  Neolithic  Age.  Indi¬ 
cations  point,  in  fact,  to  an  age,  not  by  any  means  wholly 
pastoral  or  agricultural,  but  an  age  also  of  invasion,  of 
unrest,  probably  of  great  tribal  movements,  the  courses 
of  which  may  never  be  satisfactorily  worked  out. 

In  another  direction,  also,  very  different  in  character 
from  that  followed  by  the  arts  of  war,  the  men  of  the 
Neolithic  Age  were  extremely  active,  and  the  results 
have  ever  since  served  to  awaken  the  admiration  and  sur¬ 
prise,  not  to  say  awe,  of  all  succeeding  generations.  This; 
is  in  the  erection  of  those  huge  monolithic  structure 
which  occur  in  great  abundance  in  various  parts  of  Eu 
rope,  and  range  in  complexity  from  single  pieces,  stand¬ 
ing  on  end,  like  obelisks,  to  great  systems,  arranged  in 
rows,  circles,  and  other  definite  forms,  and  covering  a 


MAX'S  PREHISTORIC  TAST 


226 

territory  hundreds  of  acres  in  area  (§§  20,22).  Many 
of  these  were  definitely  tombs,  and  may  have  formed 
originally  the  core  or  framework  of  artificial  mounds  or 
tumuli,  the  removal  of  which  through  natural  erosion 
brought  the  stone  structure  again  to  light.  Others,  es¬ 
pecially  the  largest  and  most  complex,  were  certainly 
temples,  with  the  essential  attributes  of  all  temples : 
(1)  a  majestic  approach,  (2)  an  antechamber,  and  (3) 
an  inner  sanctuary.  Even  in  these  cases,  however,  an 
original  mortuary  purpose  is  by  no  means  excluded,  as 
these  structures  may  have  been  erected  to  honor  some 
deified  hero  of  forgotten  antiquity,  and  may  thus  have 
served  as  tomb  and  temple  at  one  and  the  same  time. 
The  enormous  quantity  of  these  megalithic  structures, 
scattered  in  rather  definite  areas  over  Europe  and  North¬ 
ern  Africa,  points  to  the  existence  of  a  widspread  and 
powerful  cult,  in  the  observance  of  which  the  people 
put  forth  their  best  energies  and  employed  their  highest 
efforts. 

In  general,  the  men  of  the  Neolithic  Age  placed  their 
dead  in  the  ground,  the  manner  of  disposal  showing  a 
great  variety  of  methods.  Sometimes  they  were  laid 
upon  their  backs  or  sides  in  a  perfectly  straight  posi¬ 
tion;  sometimes  they  were  placed  on  their  sides  in  the 
well-known  ‘ ‘ H ockerstellung that  is,  doubled  up,  with 
the  knees  approaching  the  chin ;  and  again,  various 
types  of  urn-buriai  are  not  infrequent,  in  which  either 
the  folded  body,  or  the  dismembered  bones,  are  placed 
in  a  huge  urn,  and  enclosed  in  a  rough  tomb  composed 
of  a  circle  of  large  stones.  The  cist-grave,  made  of  flat 
stone  slabs,  in  the  form  of  a  rectangle,  with  floor  and 
roof  as  well  as  sides,  is  also  no  unusual  occurrence.  In 


EUROPEAN  PREHISTORY  227 

most  cases,  also  as  lias  been  t lie  almost  universal  custom 
among  all  humanity,  various  personal  possessions,  both 
ornaments  and  weapons,  were  laid  with  the  body,  and 
often,  too,  one  or  more  utensils  containing  food.  Judg¬ 
ing  from  the  mortuary  customs  of  living  races,  among 
whom  almost  every  Neolithic  method  may  still  be 
found  somewhere,  these  various  customs  are  adopted 
neither  by  chance  nor  wholly  as  utilitarian,  but  possess  a 
definite  religious  significance,  and  point  not  only  to  the 
existence  of  complicated  rituals,  such  as  exist  to-day 
among  the  American  aborigines,  but  to  a  considerable 
diversity  of  rites,  which,  judging  from  primitive  people 
of  the  present  day,  points  in  its  turn  to  a  similar  diver¬ 
sity  of  race  and  probably  language. 

48.  Megalithic  Temples.  In  several  localities  of  west¬ 
ern  Europe  combinations  of  various  types  of  megaliths, 
such  as  alignments,  triliths,  and  cromlechs,  consisting 
of  hundreds  or  even  thousands  of  separate  stones,  and 
extending  over  a  considerable  territory,  are  so  placed  as 
to  form  a  definite  architectural  plan.  Moreover,  since 
these  structures  either  consist  of,  or  become  focused  in, 
a  system  of  stone  circles,  which  seems  to  form  an  inner 
enclosure  of  worship,  it  may  not  be  too  presumptious  to 
see  in  such  architectural  plans  actual  temples,  with 
roads  leading  to  them,  and  other  accessories. 

Three  of  these  are  especially  extensive,  and  deserve 
particular  notice,  those  of  Stonehenge  and  Avebury,  in 
Wiltshire,  England,  and  that  of  Carnac-Menac  in  Brit¬ 
tany,  near  the  coast.  Of  these  the  latter,  which  is  the 
most  extensive  in  area,  and  consists  of  the  largest  num¬ 
ber  of  separate  megaliths,  may  be  first  considered.  It 
begins  with  eleven  parallel  rows  of  huge  menhirs — i.e., 


22S 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  TAST 


alignments,  which  run  almost  exactly  east  and  west  for 
a  distance  of  about  three  kilometers.  The  separate  men¬ 
hirs  very  in  height  from  six  meters  down  to  a  half  meter, 
and  define  a  series  of  parallel  avenues  across  the  plain. 
About  eleven  hundred  and  seventy  stones  are  still  in 
place,  but  originally  the  total  number  in  these  align¬ 
ments  must  have  been  not  far  from  two  thousand. 
Toward  the  western  end  these  great  avenues  became 
cut  off  by  short  alignments  running  across  the  longitu¬ 
dinal  ones,  and  both  these  and  the  cross  rows  were  here 
probably  once  connected  by  masonry,  forming  a  series  of 
rectangular  rooms  or  courts.  Beyond  these  in  turn,  the 
alignments  terminate  in  the  remains  of  a  vast  stone 
circle,  or  rather  two  concentric  circles,  which  may  be 
identified  as  the  temple  proper.  Unfortunately,  a  large 
part  of  this  has  been  quarried  for  building  material,  and 
now  forms  the  modern  village  of  Menac,  which  is  situ¬ 
ated  within  the  enclosure,  so  that  the  original  plan  of 
this,  the  most  essential  part  of  the  whole,  is  hard  to 
follow. 

The  architectural  plan  of  Carnac  is  thus  strongly  sug¬ 
gestive  of  a  vast  temple  with  a  long  approach,  and  in¬ 
voluntarily  suggests  that  other  Karnak 1  in  Egypt, 
where  the  idea  crudely  suggested  by  the  first  is  carried 
out  with  the  potent  addition  of  the  sculptor’s  skill.  The 
rough-hewn  stones  of  the  one  have  changed  to  crouching 
sphinxes,  between  which  the  worshipper  walks  toward 
the  terminal  temple,  where  the  unshaped  menhirs  have 
become  symmetrical  columns  with  lotus  capitals;  yet  the 

1  Is  this  resemblance  in  name  wholly  accidental?  If  a  pure 
coincidence  it  is  certainly  a  remarkable  one,  when  we  con¬ 
sider  also  the  singular  parallelism  in  the  structures  for  which 
both  are  famous. 


EUROPEAN  PREHISTORY  220 

plan  is  similar,  and  the  Breton  Carnac  in  actual  size  is 
much  superior  to  the  other. 

As  the  solitary  menhir  probably  developed  into  the 
finished  obelisk,  so  the  passage  from  the  cromlech  or 
rude  stone  circle  to  the  temples  of  Egypt  and  Greece  is 
equally  simple.  The  uprights,  when  shaped,  become  col¬ 
umns,  and  in  certain  cases,  like  the  so-called  Temple  of 
Vesta  at  Rome,  retain  the  primitive  circular  arrange¬ 
ment.  With  the  change  of  ground  plan  from  the  circle 
to  the  rectangle  comes  the  pediment,  and  with  the  great 
advance  in  the  production  and  employment  of  building 
materials  comes  the  possibility  of  a  roof,  a  feature  al¬ 
ready  employed  in  the  case  of  the  dolmen,  but  in  this 
monolithic  form,  utterly  impossible  for  large  structures. 

Of  the  two  great  British  megalithic  structures,  Ave¬ 
bury  and  Stonehenge,  the  former  is  much  the  larger  in 
ground  plan,  but  the  latter  is  the  better  preserved.  At 
Avebury  the  central  temple  consists  first  of  a  mighty 
cromlech,  twelve  hundred  feet  in  diameter,  composed 
of  one  hundred  separate  stones,  each  five  or  six  meters 
high ;  then,  within  this,  two  smaller  cromlechs,  each 
double,  with  a  few  separate  menhirs  filling  the  center. 
Of  these  lesser  cromlechs  the  outer  circle  contains  thirty 
stones  and  the  inner  twelve,  in  each  case.  Extending 
from  each  side  of  this  complex  central  edifice  pass  two 
avenues,  each  formed  of  a  double  alignment  of  menhirs, 
in  nearly  opposite  directions,  to  terminate,  at  a  dis¬ 
tance  of  a  half  mile  or  more  from  the  great  central 
cromlech,  in  two  lesser  terminal  cromlechs,  each  double, 
like  those  within  the  central  circle,  and  about  four  hun¬ 
dred  and  fifty  meters  in  diameter.  One  of  these  ter¬ 
minal  cromlechs  is  still  in  fair  preservation,  the  other 


230 


MAN'S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


has  become  nearly  destroyed  in  building  the  village  of 
Avebury  which  is  situated  almost  entirely  within  its 
area.  Placed  in  strict  accordance  with  this  colossal 
ground  plan,  and  just  within  the  sheltering  arms  of  the 
two  lateral  avenues,  and  at  equal  distances  from  each, 
once  stood  the  artificial  mound  known  as  “Silbury  Hill,” 
one  hundred  and  thirty  feet  in  height,  and  covering  five 
and  a  half  acres,  easily  the  largest  artificial  mound  in 
Europe.1 

Stonehenge,  so  much  smaller  than  Avebury  that  Au¬ 
brey,  in  1665,  could  write  that  the  latter  “as  much  ex¬ 
ceeds  Stonehenge  as  a  cathedral  does  a  parish  church,” 
is  yet  superior  to  it  as  a  ruin — that  is,  it  is  more  com¬ 
plete,  and  stands  out  upon  the  plain  in  such  a  way  as 
to  produce  a  powerful  impression  of  solitary  grandeur. 

1  The  structure  at  Avebury  is  now  in  a  very  bad  state  of 
preservation,  so  bad,  indeed,  that  the  original  plan  is  difficult 
to  make  out,  and  allows  an  opportunity  for  differences  of 
opinion.  According  to  the  investigations  of  Stukeley,  in  the 
middle  of  the  eighteeth  century,  the  entire  ground  plan  pre¬ 
sents  the  form  of  the  conventionalized  head  of  a  steer  or  cow, 
the  central  temple  forming  the  head,  and  the  two  lateral 
avenues,  gently  curving  and  becoming  narrower  toward  the 
ends,  the  horns.  These  are  tipped  by  two  small  cromlechs. 

It  is  quite  possible  that  Stukeley,  writing  nearly  two  hundred 
years  ago,  possessed  data  now  destroyed,  but  at  present  the 
indications  of  such  a  plan  are  faint  at  best,  and  some  openly 
disbelieve  it.  Thus  Schuchhardt,  who  went  carefully  over  the 
structure  in  1910,  finds  but  one  of  the  two  great  lateral  avenues, 
the  one  leading  east ;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  discovers  traces 
of  a  second  street  leading  southeast  to  an  ancient  settlement 
upon  the  river  Rennet.  The  main  structure  he  finds  in  much 
the  same  form  as  have  others ;  a  great  stone  circle,  enclosing 
two  smaller  circles,  one  with  one,  the  other  with  three  mono¬ 
liths  in  the  center.  He  also  considers  both  Stonehenge  and 
Avebury  to  have  been  memorial  monuments  rather  than 
temples ,  on  the  ground  that  they  are  premycenaean  in  culture, 
and  that  even  as  late  as  the  Mycenaean  Period  no  true  temples 
are  found.  Cf.  Schuchhardt,  C.,  “Stonehenge,”  in  Prdhistrische 
Zeitschrift,  Bd.  II,  1910.  pp.  292-340. 


EUROPEAN  PREHISTORY 


231 


It  possessed,  in  its  original  condition,  an  outer  circle  of 
thirty  very  large  menhirs,  probably  capped  entirely 
around,  from  one  to  another,  with  horizontal  pieces  form¬ 
ing  architraves.  Just  within  this  was  a  slightly  smaller 
circle  of  thirty  low  menhirs,  less  than  half  the  size  of 


Fig.  52. — Stonehenge,  on  Salisbury  Plain,  England,  restored.  It  consisted  orig¬ 
inally  of  an  outer  circle  of  stones,  connected  by  architraves,  and  measur¬ 
ing  some  13  feet  in  height,  which  surrounds  certain  inner  structures,  the 
most  noticeable  features  of  which  are  five  gigantic  triliths,  each  of  two 
uprights  and  a  cross  piece.  With  the  cross  pieces  these  triliths  stand  at 

a  height  of  between  19  and  26  feet.  Within  the  triliths  again  is  an  oval 
of  rather  small  uprights,  and  near  one  end,  at  about  one  focus  of  the  oval, 
is  placed  a  flat  stone,  usually  considered  to  be  an  altar.  The  whole  is 
thought  to  be  a  temple,  but  may  have  also  been  a  tomb  or  a  mausoleum, 
erected  to  the  individual  who  was  afterwards  worshiped  there.  Hundreds 
of  graves,  some  of  them  in  the  form  of  mounds,  occur  in  the  immediate 
neighborhood  of  Stonehenge,  and  date  mostly  from  the  early  Bronze  Age. 
(From  Schuchart,  after  Browne,  1834,  in  Prahistorisclie  Zeitschrift.) 


the  others,  and  without  cap  pieces.  Within  this,  again, 
there  stood  five  mighty  triliths,  the  largest  stones  in  the 
entire  structure,  of  which  one  formed  the  head,  and  the 
others  the  sides  of  a  great  oblong  figure,  a  horizontally 
placed  arch.  Within  this  was  a  second  row  of  small 
menhirs,  forming  also  a  loop  or  arch.  In  the  innermost 
enclosure,  near  the  trilith  called  here  the  head,  was 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


placed  a  large  square  stone  with  a  flat  top,  strongly  sug¬ 
gestive  of  an  altar. 

Here,  in  these  extensive  structures,  as  well  as  in  the 
case  of  isolated  menhirs,  there  comes  naturally  the  ques¬ 
tion  of  the  way  in  which  these  enormous  blocks  of  stone 
could  have  been  moved  and  finally  set  in  place.  In  the 
handling  of  these  pieces  it  is  probable  that  rollers  and 
pulleys  played  a  considerable  part,  but  much  was  un¬ 
doubtedly  accomplished  by  excavations  and  the  forma¬ 
tion  of  earth  mounds.  Thus,  to  set  a  menhir  it  would 
be  necessary  only,  when  the  stone  was  once  brought  to 
the  right  place,  to  excavate  a  large  pit  beneath  one  end, 
involving  slightly  more  than  half  the  total  weight.  When 
completed,  the  stone,  by  mere  force  of  gravitation,  would 
drop  into  the  excavation,  and,  at  the  same  time,  assume 
a  nearly  erect  position,  which  could  be  completed  by 
means  of  a  pulley,  and  without  much  further  effort. 
The  fact  that  in  most  cases  the  heaviest  portion  of  the 
*  menhir  is  beneath  the  surface  of  the  ground,  seems  to 
corroborate  this  theory.  If,  now,  a  sloping  wall  of  earth 
were  banked  along  one  side  of  a  row  of  menhirs  when 
once  set,  an  inclined  plane  would  be  presented,  up  which 
cap  stones  could  be  rolled  into  place  upon  the  tops  of 
the  uprights,  and  when  once  correctly  set  the  removal 
of  the  earth  would  leave  the  whole  as  at  present.  This 
suggestion  receives  support  from  the  presence  of  such 
a  rampart  along  the  outer  side  of  the  great  outer  circle 
at  Avebury,  although  there  is  here  no  suggestion  of  an 
attempt  to  cap  the  uprights. 

Concerning  the  data  of  construction  and  use  of  these 
and  other  megalithic  structures,  a  little  light  has  been 
shed  through  excavation  in  the  neighborhood,  and  by 


EUROPEAN  PREHISTORY 


233 


the  examination  of  associated  graves.  Thus,  within 
three  miles  around  Stonehenge  there  are  about  three 
hundred  burial  mounds,  which,  when  opened,  are  shown 
to  be  of  the  early  Bronze  Age.  Other  writers  are  in¬ 
clined  to  consider  the  great  megalithic  structure  con¬ 
siderably  older  than  the  graves,  and  refer  these  huge 
ruins  to  the  late  Neolithic.  It  is  quite  probable,  how¬ 
ever,  that  all  do  not  belong  to  the  same  time,  and  that 
megalithic  construction,  begun  in  the  Neolithic,  con¬ 
tinued  thereafter  for  a  very  long  time ;  it  is  also  possible 
that  in  places  the  men  of  the  Bronze  Age  have  used 
these  monuments  of  an  earlier  time,  just  as,  at  present, 
in  various  parts  of  Prance,  ancient  dolmens  have  be¬ 
come  chapels  for  Christian  worship.  These  structures 
certainly  antedate  by  a  very  long  period  any  historic 
record,  and  belong  to  the  prehistoric.  Nestor,  at  the 
burial  of  Patroclus,  defines  to  his  son  the  course  for 
the  chariot  race,  a  part  of  the  funeral  games : 

“On  either  side 

Where  narrowest  is  the  way,  and  all  the  course 
Around  is  smooth,  rise  two  white  stones,  set  there 
To  mark  the  tomb  of  someone  long  since  dead, 

Or  form  a  goal  for  men  in  ages  past.1 

and  in  the  same  way  the  modern  visitor  at  Stonehenge 
or  Avebury  stands  in  the  presence  of  the  monuments  of 
a  forgotten  antiquity. 

As  a  matter  of  curiosity,  however,  a  Scotchman  named 
Pergusson,  who  wrote  as  late  as  1873,  and  whose  careful 
and  detailed  descriptions  of  British  megaliths  have  made 

Quoted  from  Sir  John  Lubbock  (Lord  Avebury),  in  “Pre¬ 
historic  Times,”  6tli  ed.  p.  10.  In  the  next  few  pages  he  dis¬ 
cusses  the  probable  date  of  Stonehenge. 


234 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


him  a  recognized  authority  on  the  subject,  has  given  a 
ridiculously  recent  date  to  all  of  them,  declaring  both 
Stonehenge  and  Avebury  to  be  not  only  not  prehistoric, 
but  actually  post-Roman,  and  associates  certain  of  them 
with  the  battles  fought  by  the  semi-mythical  King  Ar¬ 
thur  and  the  knights  of  his  Round  Table! 

49.  The  First  Metals;  the  Cyprolithic  Age. — Such  a 
religious  development  as  that  indicated  by  the  temples 
and  tombs  was  in  great  part  a  masculine  activity,  for  in 
all  historic  cases  it  is  the  men  who  establish  the  beliefs 
and  devise  the  rites.  In  certain  of  the  best  established 
religions  of  the  present  day,  women  either  play  no  part  at 
all,  or  are  suffered  to  appear  as  auditors  at  certain  times 
only.  Except  in  a  few  specific  cases,  the  priests,  especially 
the  chief  ones,  belong  to  the  male  sex,  and  where  there  are 
institutions  of  priestesses,  they  form  only  a  part  of  a 
larger  cult  controlled  by  men.  Priests  and  nobles,  among 
primitive  civilizations,  are  usually  in  sympathy,  and 
the  high  priest  and  the  king  are  often  identical.  The 
late  Neolithic  form  of  government  was  most  likely  a 
hierarchy,  and  the  number  and  complexity  of  the  vari¬ 
ous  ceremonials  very  great. 

And  it  was  among  such  a  civilization,  to  people  with 
flocks  and  herds,  to  people  who  could  spin  and  weave 
and  make  pots,  that  a  new  substance  called  copper  grad¬ 
ually  made  its  way  from  the  southeast  through  the  chan¬ 
nels  of  commerce,  the  forerunner  of  the  series  of  metals, 
the  use  of  which  was  destined  to  give  the  final  impetus 
to  civilization.  Copper,  like  gold,  silver,  and  a  few 
other  metals,  occurs  occasionally  in  the  free  state,  un¬ 
combined  with  other  elements.  Pieces  of  these  free 
metals,  gold  especially,  had  naturally  long  attracted  at- 


Fig.  53. — Copper  implements  from  the  Cyprolithic  Age  of  Central  Europe.  (1-5),, 
dagger  blades;  (6-9),  beads  and  pendants;  (10),  necklace  of  copper  beads; 
(11,  13),  finger-rings;  (12),  fish-hook.  (After  Forrer.) 


236  MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 

• 

tention,  and  gold  nuggets  are  occasionaly  met  with  in 
Neolithic  graves,  together  with  pearls  and  precious  stones, 
and  used  solely  as  ornaments.  In  the  island  of  Crete, 
where  free  native  copper  is  obtainable,  this  metal  also  was 
used  during  the  Stone  Age  for  the  same  purpose,  and  here 
first,  according  to  many  authorities,  experiments  were 
made  in  beating  it  out  between  stones.  This  had  been 
the  treatment  accorded  from  the  earliest  times  to  stones 
from  which  implements  were  to  be  made,  but  in  the 
case  of  this  new  material  the  results  were  radically  dif¬ 
ferent.  Instead  of  striking  off  flakes  here  and  there,  as 
in  all  former  experiments,  the  artisans  succeeded  only 
in  pounding  it  out  into  plates,  or  drawing  it  out  into 
wire,  the  one  not  very  thin,  and  the  other  not  very  deli¬ 
cate;  yet  they,  especially  the  last,  opened  up  new  pos¬ 
sibilities  of  manufacture.  The  results  appear  in  early 
Cretan  graves  in  the  form  of  spiral  rings  and  long  pins 
for  fastening  clothing,  usually  with  a  crude  twist  or 
spiral  for  a  head ;  also  in  a  certain  type  of  lance  or  short 
sword. 

Pieces  of  this  malleable  metal  soon  found  their  way 
to  the  continent,  presumably  first  along  the  eastern 
shores  of  the  Mediterranean ;  and  up  the  valley  of  the 
Danube,  and  from  thence  gradually  but  surely,  this  ma¬ 
terial  became  disseminated  even  to  the  farthest  con¬ 
fines  of  Europe.  Its  advent  was,  of  course,  much  earlier 
in  the  South,  and  had  barely  reached  Scandinavia  at  a 
time  when  it  had  already  come  into  quite  general  use 
in  the  Mediterranean  lands.  At  first  employed  only  for 
ornaments,  and  solely  the  possessions  of  the  rich,  it 
gradually  became  used  in  the  making  of  knives  and 
lance  heads,  and,  whenever  possible,  replaced  the  imple- 


EUROPEAN  PREHISTORY 


237 


ments  of  stone.  These  early  copper  artifacts  were 
crudely  hammered  out  upon  stone  anvils,  and  in  many 
cases,  as  was  natural,  were  good  copies  of  stone  imple¬ 
ments,  both  in  shape  and  size.  Others  struck  out  into 
new  lines  rendered  possible  by  the  qualities  of  this  new 
material,  and  produced  utensils  made  of  thin  plates, 
perforated  with  holes  for  attachment  to  handles ;  in  both 
characters  definite  departures  from  previous  lines  of 
manufacture,  as  such  things  would  not  be  possible  in 
stone.  The  readiness  with  which  this  new  substance 
could  be  beaten  out  into  the  form  of  a  wire,  still  retain¬ 
ing  its  tenacity,  was  early  seen,  and  later  in  Germany 
and  France,  as  earlier  in  Crete,  such  pieces  were  wound 
into  small  spirals  to  adorn  the  fingers,  and  twisted  into 
more  utilitarian  shapes  such  as  fishhooks. 

As  the  advantages  of  this  new  material  became  con¬ 
tinually  more  manifest,  men  all  over  Europe  were  stim¬ 
ulated  to  search  their  native  mountains  for  pieces  of  the 
same  metal,  and  in  several  places,  as  in  Hungary,  the 
province  of  Salzburg  in  Austria,  and  in  Spain,  success¬ 
ful  copper  mines  were  opened,  where  the  mining  was 
accomplished  by  implements  of  wood  and  stone;  and 
the  rock  broken  by  huge  stone  hammers.  Mining  opera¬ 
tions  for  extracting  flint  had  long  been  known  (e.  g.,  at 
Spiennes,  during  the  late  Paleolithic),  so  that  men  were 
quite  ready,  when  the  demand  became  sufficient,  to  delve 
in  the  earth  for  this  new  metal,  and  follow  veins  of  it 
through  the  rock.1 

At  about  this  time,  too,  probably  as  a  direct  result 
of  the  search  for  copper,  a  new  malleable  metal  was 


1  Sop  lius  Muller :  “Urgeschiclite  Europas,”  p.  47. 


238 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


found  in  the  distant  island  of  Britain,  and  from  that 
center  became  gradually  disseminated  over  continental 
Europe.  This  metal,  tin,  while  nearly  or  quite  as  malle¬ 
able  as  copper,  was  soon  found  to  be  more  brittle,  and 
hence  was  not  as  serviceable  for  tools  and  weapons ;  but, 
on  the  other  hand,  its  white  color  and  silvery  lustre, 
which  contrasted  so  strikingly  with  copper,  and  perhaps 
also  with  the  dark  skins  of  the  people,  brought  it  into 
much  favor  for  personal  decoration. 

While  now,  the  introduction  of  copper  and  tin  in 
small  quantities,  mainly  as  objects  of  adornment,  left 
the  people  for  a  short  time  still  in  pure  Neolithic  sur¬ 
roundings,  the  continued  increase  of  these  metals,  espe¬ 
cially  the  inevitable  replacement  of  stone  implements  by 
metallic  ones,  eventually  effected  a  marked  change  in 
their  culture,  especially  in  that  aspect  of  it  exhibited  to 
the  archeologist.  The  people  had  become  Cyprolithic ; 
they  used  both  flint  and  copper,  but  employed  the  latter 
precisely  as  a  stone ,  beating  it  into  shape  by  hand,  upon 
stone  anvils,  by  methods  not  very  different  from  those 
employed  in  shaping  flints. 

This  stage,  however,  was  of  short  duration — as  some 
think,  and  with  considerable  right,  far  too  short  a  stage 
to  serve  as  the  basis  of  one  of  the  main  subdivisions  of 
prehistoric  chronology — and  seems  rather  a  transition  to 
the  next  period  than  a  period  in  itself.  The  passage 
over  into  the  definite  “Age  of  Bronze’ 9  was  effected 
mainly  through  the  dissemination  of  two  new  inven¬ 
tions:  (1)  that  of  melting  the  metals,  and  casting  them 
in  stone  molds,  and  (2)  that  of  smelting ,  or  obtaining 
the  pure  metals  from  their  ores. 

50.  Casting  and  Smelting;  the  Advent  of  Bronze . — 


EUROPEAN  PREHISTORY 


239 


Just,  how  or  where  the  men  of  Europe  first  learned  that 
copper  and  tin  would  melt  in  a  hot  fire,  and  that,  when 
molten,  they  could  be  poured  into  molds,  the  shape 
of  which  they  would  retain  permanently  and  in 
every  detail  when  cooled  again,  is  not  definitely  known, 
but  both  of  these  metals,  with  which  man  did  his  chief 
early  experimenting,  have  a  low  melting  point,  and  there 
must  have  been  frequent  cause  to  observe  this  phenom¬ 
enon,  through  the  effect  of  the  hearth  fire  upon  objects 
of  copper  and  tin  that  accidentally  found  their  way 
among  the  coals.  This  experience  is  so  natural,  and  its 
teachings  so  plain,  that  the  invention  must  have  been 
independently  made  in  many  parts  of  the  continent  at 
about  the  same  time ;  and  thus,  within  a  short  period, 
implements  of  molded  or  cast  metal  soon  replaced  those 
that  were  beaten  out  in  the  old  way.  The  molds  were 
cut  out  of  soft  stone,  made  of  two  pieces  pinned  to¬ 
gether,  and  when  once  equipped,  and  supplied  with  suf¬ 
ficient  raw  material,  a  primitive  workshop,  employing 
but  three  or  four  hands,  could  turn  out  copper  imple¬ 
ments,  the  exact  duplicates  of  one  another,  with  great 
rapidity. 

The  next  step,  equally  spontaneous,  occurred  one  day 
when,  in  some  such  primitive  shop,  the  founder,  finding 
his  supply  of  copper  running  low,  threw  a  little  tin  into 
his  melting  pot  with  the  copper,  and  found,  to  his  great 
surprise,  that  the  finished  material  was  unlike  that 
formed  of  either  metal  alone,  but  that  it  united  the 
tenacity  of  copper  to  the  hardness  of  tin,  so  that  a  hard 
blow  could  be  dealt  without  either  turning  the  edge  or 
causing  the  weapon  to  shiver  into  pieces.  The  color, 
too,  was  a  pleasing  one,  intermediate  between  the  two 


240 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


original  materials,  and  men  saw,  for  the  first  time, 
bronze,  a?i  alloy  of  copper  and  tin. 

A  second  great  advance,  resulting  from  these  simple 
metallurgic  operations,  was  the  discovery  of  smelting, 
a  process  through  which  the  metal  could  be  obtained 
from  certain  of  its  ores.  Although  the  metals  com¬ 
monly  used,  copper  and  tin,  occur  in  very  limited 
quantities  in  the  free  state  their  ores,  minerals  in 
which  the  metal  occurs  in  chemical  combination  with 
other  elements,  are  frequently  found  in  abundance.  Of 
these  ores,  the  simplest  are  the  oxides  and  sulphides, 
which  demand  for  their  reduction  nothing  more  than 
the  mixing  of  the  pulverized  ore  with  charcoal,  and  the 
subjection  of  the  mixture  to  a  considerable  degree  of 
heat.  Since  these  oxides  often  occur  in  the  course  of 
primitive  metal  working,  such  a  reduction,  at  least  on  a 
small  scale,  would  occasionally  catch  the  eye  of  the  smith. 
These  processes  demanded  a  higher  temperature  than 
that  required  simply  to  fuse  the  pure  metals,  and  for  this 
purpose  a  primitive  blast  furnace  became  developed, 
with  the  bag-like  skin  of  an  animal  for  bellows,  such  as 
is  still  in  use  among  the  native  smiths  of  central  Africa. 
This  apparatus,  in  itself  merely  a  mechanical  lung  for 
blowing  the  fire,  and  thus  augmenting  the  force  of  the 
heat,  is  but  a  simple  invention,  and  was  used  in  all 
probability  in  the  process  of  melting  the  free  metals 
before  its  employment  to  aid  in  the  reduction  of  ores; 
but  with  the  knowledge  of  simple  smelting  opera¬ 
tions,  this  bellows  became  of  greater  importance,  and 
became  eventually  fitted  with  a  frame  and  worked  by  a 
lever. 

This  gradual  increase  of  discovery  and  invention,  com- 


EUROPEAN  PREHISTORY 


241 


bined  with  the  renewed  zeal  of  the  miners,  multiplied 
the  amount  of  available  metal  many  fold.  It  gradually, 
but  surely,  replaced  the  less  efficient  stone  implements, 
not  of  the  wealthy  and  powerful  only,  but  eventually 
of  the  lower  classes  as  well ;  and  as  a  direct  result  stim¬ 
ulated  every  industry  by  supplying  them  with  better 
tools.  The  combination  of  copper  and  tin,  bronze,  had 
by  this  time  replaced  the  use  of  either  metal  alone  for 
most  purposes.  In  the  earliest  bronze  implements,  for 
example,  there  is  too  much  copper  for  the  greatest 
efficiency  (95.5  per  cent),  but  soon  the  proportion 
of  tin  increased  to  10.12  per  cent,  the  usual  pro¬ 
portion.  Toward  the  end  of  the  bronze  period  a  part 
of  the  tin  was  replaced  by  the  newly  found  metal, 
lead,  and  the  proportion  of  copper,  tin  and  lead 
used  for  most  purposes  became  about  88 :7 :5,  respec¬ 
tively. 

The  gradual  introduction,  first  of  copper,  and  then  of 
bronze,  with  the  consequent  dropping  off  in  the  earlier 
materials,  is  shown  by  the  help  of  the  accompanying 
table,  which  gives  the  proportionate  number  of  arti¬ 
facts  of  stone,  copper  and  bronze  during  the  periods  in¬ 
volved  in  the  transition.1 


Period  Percentage  of  Stone  Copper  Bronze 


Early  Neolithic  . 

. 100 

0 

0 

Middle  Neolithic . 

.  00 

1 

0 

Late  Neolithic  . 

10 

0 

Cyprolithic  (1st  phase) .  .  . 

25 

0 

Cyprolithic  (2nd  phase) . . 

50 

0 

Cyprolithic  (3rd  Phase)  .  . 

. 40 

50 

10 

Earliest  Bronze  . 

. 30 

30 

40 

Early  Bronze  . 

.  15 

15 

70 

Middle  Bronze  . 

.  3 

3 

94 

1  Robt.  Forrer,  “Urgeschichte  des  Europaers,”  p.  319. 


242 


MAN'S  PREHISTORIC  TAST 


51.  The  Bronze  Age.1 — With  the  Age  of  Bronze  we 
enter  the  outer  portals  of  history,  for  the  art  of  writing 
appeared  in  Europe  at  about  this  time,  coming  from  the 
mysterious  East,  and  the  priests  and  scribes  began  to 
record  their  annals.  When  then  they  first  took  up  the 
pen  to  write  down  the  tribal  memories  of  the  past,  they 
wrote  of  the  Bronze  Age,  putting  into  lasting  form  tra¬ 
ditions  that  had  long  been  transmitted  only  through  the 
faulty  memories  of  men  accustomed  to  the  marvelous. 
Their  poets,  wont  to  entertain  the  men  assembled  in 
the  banquet  hall  with  tales  of  Bronze  Age  heroes,  and 
to  sing  of  Achilles,  Beowulf  and  Siegfried,  now  recorded 
their  songs,  with  the  actual  facts,  already  half -forgotten 
and  distorted  in  their  own  favor,  upon  the  dried 
entrails  of  sheep,  or  upon  the  flat  walls  of  temples.  Thus 
arose  the  first  written  literature,  such  as  the  Iliad,  Sieg¬ 
fried,  and  the  Song  of  Roland,  and  the  scenes  depicted 
in  them  give  us  invaluable  glimpses  of  Bronze  Age  civil¬ 
ization.  Although,  in  contrast  to  the  Ages  of  Stone, 
the  Bronze  Age  was  a  period  of  great  advancement, 
or  even  of  luxury,  still,  as  compared  with  modern 
civilization,  the  times  were  barbarous  in  the  extreme. 


1  For  the  study  of  the  Bronze  Age  in  detail,  far  too  vast  a 
field  to  be  more  than  mentioned  here,  the  reader  may  consult 
such  older,  comprehensive  works  as  “Ancient  Bronze  Imple¬ 
ments,”  by  Sir  John  Evans;  Paul  du  Cliaillu,  “The  Viking 
Age” ;  or  Montelius,  “Die  Chronologic  der  iiltesen  Bronzezeit 
in  Nord  Deutschland  und  Skandinavien.”  Such  classics  as 
Babbock’s  “Prehistoric  Times, ”and  Boyd-Dawkins’s  “Early  Man 
in  Britain,”  give  much  concerning  the  Bronze  Age.  and  it  must 
also  be  remembered  that  the  Bronze  Age  activities  form  a 
large  part  of  the  labors  of  the  classical  archeologists,  and  that 
thus  the  study  of  prehistory  has  been  greatly  enriched  by  such 
excavations  as  those  of  Schliemann  at  Hissarlik  (Troy)  and 
Mycenae,  and  those  of  Evans  and  the  two  Haweses  in  Crete. 


Pig.  54. — Sword  hilt  and  two  daggers  from  the  earliest 
Bronze  Age  in  Scandinavia.  (After  Sophus  Muller.) 


244 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


Men  enjoyed  the  lust  of  carnage,  and  gloated  over 
the  details  of  the  bloodiest  struggles;  they  celebrated 
the  deaths  of  heroes  by  funeral  games,  and  invoked 
the  aid  of  the  gods  by  the  sacrifice  of  oxen,  dismem¬ 
bered  by  priests  in  the  sight  of  all  the  people.  Even 
an  occasional  human  sacrifice  was  advocated,  like  that 
of  Iphigenia;  or  actually  performed,  like  that  of  Jeph- 


Fig.  55.— Gold  bracelets  from  the  Bronze  Age,  all  Scandinavian.  Above: 
heavy  gold  bracelet,  worn  by  a  warrior.  Earliest  Bronze  Age.  Be¬ 
low:  two  more  delicate  gold  bracelets,  also  worn  by  men;  later  than 
the  one  above.  (After  S.  Muller.) 

thah’s  daughter;  and  the  bodies  of  the  bravest  of  foes 
were  dishonored  in  the  most  shameful  manner. 

The  banqueting  halls  of  Odysseus  were  used  in  the 
intervals  of  the  feasts  as  abattoirs  for  the  slaughtering 
of  oxen,  and  the  floors  were  littered  at  all  times  by  the 


Fig.  56.— Bronze  implements  and  weapons  from  the  Middle  Bronze  Age  in 
Central  Europe.  (1),  knife;  (2),  lance,  from  Skane,  Sweden;  (3),  sword- 
hilt,  from  West  Gotland,  Sweden;  (4)  sword-hilt,  from  Bohemia;  (5),  dag¬ 
ger,  Scandinavia;  (6),  sword,  Tyrol;  (7),  stud,  Tyrol;  (8),  bracelet,  Hart- 
hausen;  (9),  arrow-point,  Switzerland;  (10),  two  views  of  decorated  stud, 
Sweden;  (11),  sickle,  Hungary;  (12),  brooch,  Wallishofen,  Lake  of  Zurich, 
Switzerland;  (13),  hair-needle,  Southern  Germany;  (14),  sword-hilt,  Lor¬ 
raine.  (After  Forrer. ) 


246 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


hides  and  horns,  left  around  apparently  without  any 
especial  regard  to  the  feelings  of  the  banqueters.  The 
laundry  of  King  Alcinous  was  left  to  accumulate  for 
many  months,  and  was  finally  washed  by  the  members 
of  his  own  family,  and  carried  to  the  shore  in  a  gold- 
trimmed  chariot!  There  was  everywhere  the  greatest 
incongruity  between  the  gold  and  jewels  with  which  their 
utensils  were  decorated,  and  the  menial  occupations  in 
which  they  were  used;  between  the  architectural  splen¬ 
dors  of  the  palaces,  and  the  squalor  of  the  life  that  went 
on  within  their  walls. 

During  the  Bronze  Age  there  developed  a  high  decor¬ 
ative  art,  and  the  implements,  especially  those  of  war, 
the  constant  companions  of  the  warriors,  became  covered 
with  the  most  intricate  decorative  engraving.  Gold  was 
possessed  in  considerable  profusion ;  and  in  place  of 
coinage,  which  had  not  yet  appeared  as  such,  this  metal 
was  made  up  into  household  utensils  or  personal  orna¬ 
ments,  often  of  great  beauty.  Yet  the  possessors  of 
these  almost  priceless  splendors  were  often  forced  to 
live  in  caves,  or  in  dwellings  of  rude  construction,  under 
circumstances  which  we  of  the  present  age,  would  not 
accord  to  paupers,  or  even  criminals.  The  people  pos¬ 
sessed  neither  soap,  bathtubs,  nor  tooth  brushes;  and 
the  towns,  and  even  walled  cities,  had  no  sewage  system 
of  any  kind. 

Aside  from  the  ornaments,  jewels  and  personal  weap¬ 
ons  worn  or  carried  by  the  people  of  the  Bronze  Age, 
of  which  the  legends  often  give  detailed  descriptions 
that  are  corroborated  by  excavation,  especially  that  of 
tombs  and  graves,  there  had  developed  a  complex  and 
i  extensive  costume,  adapted  to  each  sex,  and  suited  to 


Fig.  57.— Late  Bronze  Age  in  Central  Europe;  bronze  hair-needles. 

(After  Forrer.) 


Fig.  58. — Implements  from  the  Late  Bronze  Age;  lake-dwellings  of  Wallishofen, 
Lake  of  Zurich,  Switzerland.  (After  Forrer.) 


EUROPEAN  PREHISTORY 


249 


the  variations  of  climate  and  annual  changes  of  tem¬ 
perature.  Precise  evidence  concerning  costumes  in  the 
Baltic  region  is  furnished  by  the  clothing  on  bodies 
found  in  the  peat  of  Danish  moors,  enclosed  in  coffins 
made  of  hollow  logs.  This  clothing,  of  wool  or  linen, 
consists  of  caps,  cloaks,  shirts  and  gowns,  the  latter  gath¬ 
ered  about  the  waist,  and  confined  by  a  leathern  girdle. 
Even  nets  for  the  hair,  worn  by  the  women,  have  been 
found.  Unfortunately,  however,  the  custom  of  burning 
the  dead  was  widespread  during  the  Bronze  Age,  and 
the  numberless  urns,  containing  calcined  bones  and 
ashes,  although  in  themselves  important  documents  for 
tracing  the  distribution  of  Bronze  Age  culture,  leave 
us  no  information  concerning  either  the  clothing  or  the 
physical  traits  of  the  people  themselves. 

Much  material  from  the  Bronze  Age  has  been  obtained 
from  Scandanavia  and  the  Swiss  lakes,  where  the  sites 
of  the  pile  dwellings,  extensively  used  during  the  Neo¬ 
lithic,  continued  to  be  inhabited  during  at  least  a  por¬ 
tion  of  this  age.  From  the  classical  archeologists  in 
Greece  and  Crete  most  valuable  records  have  been  fur¬ 
nished,  especially  those  of  the  Mycenaean  and  Minoan 
civilizations ;  the  first  at  Mycenae,  and  the  neighboring 
sites  of  Tiryns  and  Argos,  in  Peloponnesus,  the  latter 
at  Knossos  in  Crete.  About  the  first  cluster  the  legends 
of  King  Agamemnon,  and  about  the  latter  those  of  King 
Minos,  with  his  famous  labyrinth ; 1  but  while  these 

1  It  has  been  recently  brought  to  light  that  the  original  Cretan 
word,  rendered  7ia6uQivfio<;  by  the  Greeks,  has  no  suggestion  of 
a  maze  in  a  cavern,  or  anything  even  remotely  suggesting  it, 
but  was  their  regular  word  for  the  double-headed,  or  double- 
bladed,  axe,  the  heraldic  symbol  of  their  country,  or  of  their 
chief  city.  Thus,  the  entire  myth  of  the  Cretan  labyrinth,  with 


250 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  TAST 


legends  are  probably  each  of  local  origin  in  their  respec¬ 
tive  localities,  and  perhaps  refer  even  to  actual  Bronze 
Age  rulers,  the  excavations  mean  vastly  more  than  that, 
and  reveal  in  many  places,  not  only  a  long  continued 
and  probably  illustrious  Bronze  Age  civilization,  but  a 
previous  long  Neolithic  period  as  well,  antedating  the 
former  and  extending  to  the  third  or  fourth  millennium 
before  our  era. 

At  the  present  time  an  extensive  Bronze  Age  civil¬ 
ization  is  being  unearthed  in  Austria,  extending  upward 
through  Carinthia  and  westward  to  the  Tyrol,  also  south 
and  east  along  the  Adriatic  Sea.  Of  this,  unlike  Crete 
and  the  Pelopponnesus,  historj^  has  preserved  nothing, 
not  even  traditions,  and  whatever  is  to  be  won  must  be 
accomplished  through  excavation  alone. 

52.  The  Introduction  of  Iron. — As  the  appearance 
of  copper  and  tin  throughout  central  Europe  gives  proof 
of  at  least  the  beginnings  of  an  extensive  commerce,  so 
the  extension  of  the  bronze  culture,  with  the  close  simi¬ 
larity  in  culture  objects  over  the  entire  continent,  shows 
this  intercourse  to  have  been  continually  maintained  and 
gradually  increased.  Originating  in  the  Orient,  per¬ 
haps  along  the  shores  of  Phoenicia,  where,  at  the  dawn 
of  written  history,  we  find  the  great  center  of  the  carry¬ 
ing  trade,  the  goods  from  the  East  seem  to  have  followed 
definite  trade  routes.  Long  before  this  time  men  had 
developed  boats  perhaps  beginning  in  the  lake  villages 
of  the  Neolithic  Age  with  floating  logs,  soon  to  be  elab¬ 
orated  into  crude  canoes ;  and  by  the  time  of  the  Bronze 
Age  large  merchant  canoes  carrying  goods,  and  pro- 


tlie  story  of  Tliesens  and  Ariadne,  had  its  origin,  like  so  many 
other  mythical  stories,  in  a  mistaken  etymology. 


euroTeax  prehistory 


251 


pelled  at  least  by  oars,  if  not  by  sails,  rendered  an  easy 
communication  along  the  shores  quite  possible.  The 
Mediterranean  Sea,  with  its  numerous  accessory  gulfs 
and  inlets,  strewn  thickly  with  islands,  and  with  the 
coasts  furnished  with  frequent  harbors,  offered  excep¬ 
tional  facilities  for  the  development  of  navigation,  and 
the  hardy  mariners  who  first  brought  the  copper  from 
Cyprus  to  the  mainland  would  find  it  quite  possible,  by 
creeping  along  the  coasts,  to  reach,  not  only  all  parts  of 
Greece,  but  Italy  as  well,  and  become  eventually  mas¬ 
ters  of  the  two  great  accessory  seas,  the  Euxine  and  the 
Adriatic.  Once  possessed  of  the  coasts,  certain  great 
rivers,  like  the  Danube,  and  the  Po,  and  later  still,  the 
Rhone,  offered  feasible  routes  into  the  interior  of  the 
country;  and  by  the  establishment  of  a  few  overland 
routes  across  the  divides  to  the  headwaters  of  other  rivers, 
like  the  Loire  and  the  Rhine,  all  parts  of  Europe  could 
be  reached.  More  than  a  hint  concerning  these  early 
routes  is  contained  in  the  story  of  the  voyages  of  the 
Argonauts,  in  which  there  are  suggestions  of  the  Danube, 
the  Straits  of  Gibraltar,  the  coast  of  France,  and  perhaps 
the  Rhine  and  the  Baltic,  together  with  an  account  of 
transporting  the  ship  bodily,  by  land  route,  by  means  of 
rollers,  across  a  divide,  from  river  to  river.  That  such 
practices  were  actually  resorted  to  in  the  Bronze  Age, 
or  a  little  later,  has  been  shown  by  the  discovery  far 
inland  of  ancient  ships,  set  on  rollers,  and  evidently 
abandoned  during  such  an  attempt. 

With  all  parts  of  Europe  thus  tied  together  by  nu¬ 
merous  trade  routes,  it  is  easy  to  understand  how  the 
various  types  of  bronze  implements  became  so  generally 
distributed,  and  how  the  most  distant  parts  seem  to  have 


252  MAN'S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 

possessed  similar  equipment  at  about  the  same  time. 
Through  this  almost  simultaneous  appearance  every¬ 
where  of  the  new  inventions  and  new  types  of  imple- 
plements,  weapons  and  ornaments,  it  is  possible  with 


Fig.  59.  Women’s  costumes  in  Scandinavia  in  the  Early  Bronze  Age. 
This  drawing  is  based  upon  a  find  at  Borum-Eschol,  Denmark,  which 
consisted  of  a  coffin  made  of  a  hollow  oaken  log,  in  which  there  was 
a  woman’s  body,  with  the  garments,  and  some  of  the  flesh,  pre¬ 
served  in  the  peat,  in  which  the  burial  had  been  made.  Several 
other  similar  finds,  of  both  men  and  women,  have  been  made  from 
time  to  time,  and  we  are  now  we’l  informed  concerning  almost  every 
detail  of  the  costumes  worn  by  both  sexes  at  that  remote  epoch. 
(After  S.  Muller.) 


some  exactness  to  subdivide  the  Age  of  Bronze  into 
periods,  and  give  them  definite  dates.  The  entire  Bronze 
Age  may  thus  be  included  between  about  3000  B.  C. 


EUROPEAN  PREHISTORY 


253 


and  1000  B.  C.,  divided  into  three  periods  of  constant 
development,  as  follows : 1 

Early  Bronze  Age  2800-2200  B.  C. 

Middle  Bronze  Age  2200-1700  B.  C. 

Late  Bronze  Age  1700-1200  B.  C. 

These  dates  must  be  modified  a  little  in  applying  them 
to  the  different  countries,  as  a  country  like  Greece,  lying 
nearer  the  source  of  copper,  would  be  earlier  supplied 
with  that  metal  than  would  the  remoter  districts  of 
Scandinavia  and  England ;  yet  each  phase  of  bronze  cul¬ 
ture  seems  to  have  become  practically  universal  in  turn, 
undoubtedly  through  the  commercial  enterprise  of  for¬ 
eign  merchants.  Of  these,  the  ones  who  first  brought 
the  copper  to  the  mainland  of  Europe  were  undoubtedly 
the  Cretans,  who  at  the  beginning  of  their  activity  con¬ 
veyed  it  to  the  nearest  land  (Phoenicia),  but  soon  found 
their  way  to  Greece,  where  first  on  European  soil  the 
Bronze  Age  culture  became  established.  There  were 
some  who,  emboldened  by  their  success  thus  far,  pushed 
their  way  still  farther,  and  opened  up  the  earliest  trade 
routes  through  the  country,  yet  at  the  beginning  of 
written  history  we  find  Phoenicians,  and  not  Cretans,  in 
control  of  European  commerce. 

A  rapid  change  from  one  to  the  other  at  about  the  end 
of  the  Bronze  Period  is  curiously  indicated  by  the  sud¬ 
den  introduction  at  this  time  of  the  Phoenician  system  of 

1  These  are  the  dates  given  for  Crete  by  Charles  W.  and 
Harriet  Boyd  Hawes  (1909).  For  central  Europe  the  periods 
should  all  be  somewhat  later.  Forrer  takes  an  extreme  view, 
and  advances  the  Neolithic  to  2100  B.  C.  “Breasted  places 
Egyptian  copper  beyond  3400  B.  C.,  iron  beyond  2475  B.  C., 
with  bronze  coming  in  at  a  somewhat  later  date.” — N.  S. 
Nelson. 


2  54 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


weights  and  measures,  as  indicated  not  only  by  the  actual 
weights  of  rings  and  bracelets  of  this  period  which  cor¬ 
respond  to  exact  fractional  parts  of  the  Phoenician  mina 
and  shekel ,  but  by  the  discovery  of  real  Phoenician 
weights.1  And  it  is  with  the  coming  of  the  Phoenician 
merchants  that  two  new  substances  appear,  glass 


Fig.  60. — Pattern  of  the  woman’s  jacket  found  at  Borum-Eshol,  Den¬ 
mark.  Early  Bronze  Age.  The  long  slit  is  for  the  head.  The 
two  lower  wings  are  brought  together  to  form  the  front,  and  were 
fastened  together  by  studs.  The  upper  flap,  (e),  is  also  folded  over 
to  cover  the  upper  part  of  the  chest  in  front,  and  meets  the  lower 
part,  to  which  it  is  fastened.  The  outer  wings  of  the  upper  piece 
are  sewed  together,  and  form  ihe  sleeves,  which  reach  to  the  elbows. 
(After  S.  Muller.) 

and  iron.  For  a  time  these  seem  to  have  been  very  rare 
and  precious,  for  they  were  used  wholly  for  ornament — 
the  glass  for  personal  decoration  and  the  iron  for  the 
adornment  of  sword  hilts,  heavy  bracelets  and  other 
valuable  bronze  implements.  It  appears  in  the  Homeric 
poems  (oihriQOi;)  as  an  article  of  great  value,  and  of 
rare  occurrence;  while  the  common  metal,  of  which 
implements  and  weapons  of  all  sorts  were  made,  was 

1  Forrer  Hoc.  .s ■it.),  p.  3G4,  instances,  a  Phoenician  mina 
of  lead,  found  in  the  lake  station  of  Wollishofen.  Other  weights 
from  lake  dwellings  are  based  upon  the  Cretan  system. 


EUROPEAN  PREHISTORY 


bronze  (xahioq) .  Small  pieces  of  iron  were  given 
as  prizes  to  victors,1  and  iron  is  spoken  of  as  being 
worked  with  much  toil  (^oXi'm^to'S )  .2  During  the 
period  of  the  early  Jewish  kings  as  recorded  in  the  Old 
Testament,  the  use  of  bronze  (in  the  King  James  ver¬ 
sion  translated  “brass”)  was  practically  universal,  while 
iron  appeared  only  rarely,  and  then  for  special  purposes. 
In  the  temple  of  Solomon  all  the  metal  furnishings  of 
the  altar,  not  of  gold,  were  of  bronze,  which  an  imported 
workman,  named  Hiram,  cast  “in  the  clay  ground  be¬ 
tween  Suecoth  and  Zarethan,  ’  ”  3  but  iron  tools  are  men¬ 
tioned  in  describing  the  construction  of  the  Temple 
itself.  The  colossal  image  of  Nebuchadnezzar’s  dream 
was  mainly  of  gold  and  bronze,  with  legs  of  iron.4  The 
coming  of  the  Iron  Age  was  gradual,  and  in  those  coun¬ 
tries  of  which  we  possess  an  early  literature,  these  be¬ 
ginnings  are  placed  on  record. 

52.  The  Early  Iron  Age;  the  Hallstatt  and  La  Tenp 
Periods. — As  far  as  concerns  Europe,  it  is  only  in  Greece 
that  we  possess  written  records  of  the  introduction  of 
iron,  and  these  occur  within  the  dimness  of  legends 
rather  than  in  the  true  light  of  history;  elsewhere  we 
must  still  rely  upon  excavation,  as  with  the  earlier  pe¬ 
riods. 

Objects  illustrative  of  the  early  Iron  Age  are  widely 
distributed  over  Europe,  generally  associated  with  ob¬ 
jects  characteristic  of  the  late  Bronze  Period,  and  rep¬ 
resent  a  transition  period  between  the  two.  Thus  a  few 

1  Iliad,  XXIII,  11.  261-850.  Of.  Seymour,  “Life  in  the  Hom¬ 
eric  Age.”  Macmillan. 

2  Iliad,  VI,  p.  48;  Od.  XXI,  p.  10. 

3 1  Kings,  vii.  46. 

4  Daniel,  ii.  32-34. 


256 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


implements  of  iron  occur  in  certain  of  the  later  Swiss 
lake  dwelling  sites,  and  in  a  few  of  the  Italian  ter  remare, 
but  they  are  common  in  the  crannogs  of  Ireland  and 
Scotland,  which  were  inhabited  at  a  much  later  date 
than  the  former.  The  entire  region  about  the  head  of 


Fig.  61. — Bronze  war-trumpet,  or  “lure,”’  from  the  late  Bronze  Age  of  Scandinavia. 
These  are  found  with  comparative  frequency  in  the  moors  and  peat-bogs, 
usually  in  pairs,  which  when  blown,  sound  in  unison.  A  pair  of  these  was 
used  recently,  and  played  an  ancient  Scandinavian  war  march  at  a  Congress  of 
Archeology.  (After  S.  Muller.) 


EUROPEAN  PREHISTORY 


257 

the  Adriatic  Sea,  extending  up  through  Carinthia  and 
Tyrol,  as  well  as  down  along  the  eastern  coast,  is  espe¬ 
cially  rich  in  early  iron  sites. 

From  this  abundance  of  material  two  characteristie 
sites,  in  which  the  deposits  are  typical  and  very  abun¬ 
dant,  have  been  especially  selected  to  mark  definite 
periods,  Hallstatt  and  La  Tene.  The  first  of  these  pe¬ 
riods  is,  locally  at  least,  wholly  prehistoric,  and  marks 
a  transition,  in  which  bronze  is  still  extensively  used 
along  with  iron ;  in  the  second  the  replacement  is  prac¬ 
tically  complete,  and  the  deposits  occasionally  contain 
also  objects  of  Roman  or  Celtic  origin. 

The  Hallstatt  site  is  a  narrow  glen  in  the  Norie  Alps, 
about  an  hour’s  walk  from  the  village  of  Hallstatt,  on 
the  Hallstatter  See.  Here,  in  1846,  an  ancient  necrop¬ 
olis  was  discovered  and  excavated,  the  first  of  the  work 
being  done  by  Ramsauer,  and  continued  by  van  Sacken. 
In  all,  993  tombs  were  excavated,  of  which  533  were  in¬ 
terments,  while  the  remainder  had  been  incinerated. 

Other  important  sites  of  the  same  culture,  and  evi¬ 
dently  contemporaneous  in  their  activity,  are  those  of 
Watsch,  St.  Margarethen,  near  Laibach,  and  Sta.  Lucia, 
near  Tolmino,  all  in  Carniola,  Carinthia,  and  Upper  Aus¬ 
tria.  The  classic  description  of  the  type  locality  is  by 
von  Sacken,  “Das  Grabfeld  von  Hallstatt  in  Oberoester- 
reich,  und  dessen  Alterthiimer.  ”  Wien,  1868,  4,  26  Pis. 
The  objects  found  in  all  these  Hallstatt  Period  deposits 
are  rich  in  numbers  and  variety,  and  include  both  bronze 
and  iron,  the  former  much  predominating.  Similar  ob¬ 
jects  occur  in  places  over  a  wide  surrounding  area, 
including  the  Tyrol  and  northern  and  central  Italy,  and 
record  an  extensive  civilization,  of  which  absolutely  no 


258 


MAX'S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


record  is  to  be  found  in  history,  although  certain  of  the 
historic  peoples,  like  Greece,  perhaps,  and  Crete  and 
Egypt  certainly,  must  have  been  contemporaneous.  Like 
Horace’s  ‘ ‘kings  before  Agamemnon,  unwept  for  and 
unknown,”  they  “became  lost  in  the  obscurity  of  a  long 
night  because  they  lacked  an  inspired  bard.” 

But,  although  as  yet  neither  a  scrap  of  writing  nor 
an  inscription  of  any  sort  has  been  found,  these  people 


Pig.  62. — Bronze  situla  of  the  Hallstatt  Period;  found 
at  the  Certosa,  Bologna,  Italy.  (After  S.  Muller.,) 


have  yet  left  a  curious  pictorial  record  of  themselves,  exe¬ 
cuted  in  repoussee  work  upon  a  certain  type  of  bronze 
object,  characteristic  of  the  period.  These  objects  are 
the  situlcB,  a  sort  of  pail  with  a  handle,  used  perhaps  for 
conveying  wine  at  banquets.  They  are  in  large  part 


EUROPEAN  PREHISTORY 


259 


plain,  or  decorated  by  a  succession  of  ribs  running1 
around  them,  but  in  others  clear  zones  are  left,  which 
bear  intricate  patterns.  In  a  few  cases  this  clear  zone 
bears,  instead  of  a  conventional  pattern,  outline  pictures 
of  the  daily  life  of  the  people,  executed  with  curious 
proportions,  and  bordering  on  the  grotesque,  but  with  a 
faithfulness  to  detail  which  furnishes  much  direct  evi¬ 
dence  concerning  the  conditions  of  the  times.  These 


Fig.  63. — Design  taken  from  a  bronze  situla  of  the  Hallstatt  Period  found  at 
Watsch  in  the  Tyrol.  (After  Forrer.) 


figures  are  usually  in  the  form  of  processions,  in  which 
walk  stately  individuals  with  flat  or  pointed  caps,  and 
with  long,  straight  garments,  reaching  from  neck  to  feet, 
and  provided  with  sleeves.  The  horse,  too,  frequently 
appears,  either  ridden  or  harnessed  to  a  chariot  or  wagon. 
The  charioteers  skillfully  direct  the  horses,  while  a  great 
personage  stands  by  his  side ;  in  one  case  a  man  in  a  two¬ 
wheeled  carriage,  beautifully  ornamented,  is  doing  the 
driving  himself,  and  has  his  wife  with  him.  Tn  another 


260 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


case  peculiar  utensils  are  being  administered  to  person¬ 
ages  seated  in  chairs,  and  in  one  of  these  a  hatless  man 
carries  a  situla  in  his  right  hand,  and  offers  something 
in  his  left  to  a  seated  person.  A  constantly  recurring 
picture  is  that  of  pairs  of  naked  boxers,  with  objects 
on  their  hands  like  our  dumbbells,  and  attended  by  men 
with  long  cloaks,  who  come  in  from  each  side,  appar¬ 
ently  referees.  From  this  it  has  been  inferred  that  these 
pictorial  situlge  were  used  as  prizes  to  the  victors  in 
contests  similar  to  those  portrayed  upon  them,  but  this 
is,  of  course,  nothing  but  surmise.  The  occasional  pres¬ 
ence  of  a  helmet  and  shield,  placed  in  the  form  of  a 
trophy  between  the  two  contestants,  suggests  a  more 
serious  motive  than  that  of  simply  an  athletic  sport.  Still 
other  situlse  picture  spirited  trains  of  fighting  men  in 
two-horse  chariots,  or  long  lines  of  foot  soldiers  with 
either  oval  or  circular  shields,  and  carrying  spears  with 
points  directed  downward ;  still  again,  women  with 
mantles  and  skirts  carry  heavy  burdens  upon  their 
heads,  and  men,  accompanied  by  dogs,  bear  the  carcass 
of  a  goat  or  deer,  strapped  to  a  pole,  the  ends  of  which 
they  rest  upon  their  shoulders.  Grotesque  animals  ap¬ 
pear,  also  in  procession,  often  with  long  curly  tongues 
extended,  and  with  birds  perched  upon  their  backs.  In 
short,  the  available  space  of  such  situlae  is  crowded  with 
designs  like  those  mentioned,  and  filled  with  suggestion 
to  the  prehistorian. 

The  site  of  La  Tene,  which  gives  its  name  to  a  period 
considerably  later  than  that  of  Hallstatt,  is  very  differ¬ 
ent  in  character,  having  been  a  military  stronghold,  and 
not  a  necropolis.  This  site  is  situated  at  the  extreme 
northeastern  end  of  Lake  Neuchatel,  in  Switzerland,  at 


EUROPEAN  PREHISTORY 


261 


the  very  outlet  of  the  lake,  at  a  point  which  for  many 
centuries  had  been  covered  by  a  few  feet  of  water,  and 
called  by  the  fishermen  "La  Tene”  (the  shallows).  Ex¬ 
tensive  engineering  work,  completed  in  1876,  the  “Cor¬ 
rection  des  eaux  du  Jura,*’  drained  this  end  of  the 
lake  and  converted  the  shallows  into  dry  ground. 

The  remains  found  here  give  evidence  of  extensive  pile 
structures,  a  military  station,  and  a  battlefield,  which 
put  an  end  to  the  settlement,  and,  notwithstanding  the 
extensive  remains  of  early  pile  villages  scattered  along 


Fig.  64. — View  of  the  shallows  of  Lake  Neuchatel;  site  of  La  Tene. 

(After  Forrer.) 


the  shores  of  the  same  lake,  and  even  near  this  very  spot, 
it  soon  became  clear  that  the  especial  station  of  the  shal¬ 
lows  had  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  them.  These 
latter  are,  like  the  lake  dwellings  all  over  the  Alpine 
countries,  Neolithic  or  Bronze  Age  in  date,  while  the 
implements  from  La  Tene  are,  with  very  few  excep¬ 
tions,  of  iron,  together  with  objects  of  glass  and  other 
materials  associated  with  the  Iron  Age.  Most  definite  of 
all  are  the  coins,  of  Celtic  and  Roman  workmanship, 
found  under  conditions  which  preclude  later  intrusion. 


65.— Iron  lance-heads,  axes,  and  other  weapons  and  ornaments  from  La 

Tene.  (After  Forrer.) 


Fig. 


EUROPEAN  PREHISTORY 


263 


There  is  thus  no  doubt  that  the  station  at  La  Tene 
was  a  military  one,  guarding  the  outlet  of  the  lake,  and 
that  it  came  to  its  end  suddenly,  as  the  result  of  a  suc¬ 
cessful  attack.  The  probable  battlefield  was  strewed 
with  unsheathed  swords,  bridle  bits  and  chariot-wheels, 
and  there  have  been  found  there  the  bones  of  thirty  to 
forty  men,  some  of  the  skulls  showing  sword  gashes  across 
the  top.  The  station  was  undoubtedly  erected  and  main¬ 
tained  by  the  Helvetians,  to  guard  the  approaches  in 
that  direction,  and  “the  discovery  of  Roman  remains, 
such  as  coins,  tiles,  pottery,  bricks  (one  with  the  mark 
of  the  21st  legion,  ‘Rapax’)  on  and  around  La  Tene, 
leave  little  doubt  that  its  conquerors  were  the  Romans.”  1 
54.  The  Transition  from  Prehistory  to  History. — Cer¬ 
tain  characteristics  of  the  life  at  Hallstatt,  as  depicted 
on  the  situlae,  remind  us  forcibly  of  the  Homeric  Age 
in  Greece,  and  although  there  is  not  the  slightest  trace 
of  intercommunication  between  them,  they  may  well  have 
been  contemporary,  or  nearly  so.  In  La  Tene,  however, 
a  few  centuries  after,  come  the  clash  of  Roman  arms  and 
the  waving  standards  of  Roman  legions,  and  from  this 
time  on  the  entire  continent  becomes  lighted  by  the  torch 
of  history.  Perhaps  the  times  recorded  in  the  late 
Bronze  and  early  Iron  Ages  especially  in  Austria,  are 
those  during  which  the  Germanic  nations  were  engaged 
in  their  early  wanderings,  and  already  assembling  to 
the  north  of  the  Danube,  from  which  they  were  later 
to  throw  themselves  upon  Rome.  It  is  certain  that  in 
dealing  with  these  later  periods  we  are  investigating 
the  activities  of  peoples  contemporaneous  with  the  early 


1  Robert  Munro,  “The  Lake  Dwellings  of  Europe,”  1890,  p.  298. 


264 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


historical  periods  of  Greece,  and  probably  Rome  also, 
and  that  they  are  thus  prehistoric  only  in  the  sense  that 
they  have  left  no  written  records  themselves,  and  that 


Fig.  66. — Implements,  mainly  of  reindeer  horn,  from  the 
early  Iron  Age  station  of  Kjelminsel,  Norway,  now  in 
the  museum  at  Christiana.  One  third  natural  size. 

(After  Solberg,  in  Prahistorische  Zeitschrift.) 

no  one  with  the  knowledge  of  writing  had  ever  traveled 
among  them. 

Thus,  beginning  with  the  earliest  records  of  human 
or  semi-human  activities,  marked  upon  the  sensitive  sur- 


EUROPEAN  PREHISTORY 


265 


faces  of  pieces  of  flint,  through  the  times  of  the  Great 
Ice,  and  during  the  millennia  since  its  retreat,  Europe 
has  had  a  continuous  human  history,  confused  no  doubt 
many  a  time  by  incursions  from  the  neighboring  conti¬ 
nents,  and  by  the  more  or  less  complete  effacement  of 
one  race  by  another  over  vast  areas. 

“The  prehistory  of  Europe  sounds  at  first  like  the 
murmurs  of  the  primeval  forest ;  deep  darkness,  relieved 
here  and  there  by  spots  of  dim  light,  along  the  margins  of 
which  are  thrown  the  shadows  of  strange  animal  forms. 
Apes  play  among  the  tree-tops,  and  we  see,  behind  a 
fleeing  drove  of  wild  cattle,  the  pursuing  hunter,  known 
only  in  outline — the  First  Man. 

‘  ‘  But  the  picture  changes ;  the  forest  becomes  a  steppe. 
In  the  background  gleam  the  white  glaciers.  Over  the 
long  stretches  of  steppe  grass  droves  of  mighty  mam¬ 
moths  are  stampeding;  herds  of  buffaloes,  too,  and  wild 
horses.  Nearer  the  glaciers  reindeer  are  browsing.  And 
behind  all  these  lurks  Man,  now  a  troglodyte,  seeking 
the  chance  of  a  lucky  spearthrust. 

“Again  the  picture  changes;  mammoth  and  reindeer 
have  vanished.  Packs  of  dogs  run  through  the  wood, 
through  the  vistas  of  which  we  catch  glimpses  of  moun¬ 
tain  lakes,  with  the  fishermen  from  the  lake  villages 
throwing  their  nets.  Sheep  and  goats  are  grazing  upon 
the  open  meadows,  and  in  the  distance  stretch  the  fal¬ 
low  fields  of  the  first  agriculturists. 

“Then  this,  too,  is  effaced.  Strange  merchants  bring 
gleaming  metals ;  ruddy  copper  and  yellow  bronze.  They 
hold  up  before  the  astonished  eyes  of  the  natives  gleam¬ 
ing  gold  and  particolored  glass;  and  hard  after  glass, 
comes  iron.  We  see  the  arts,  the  technical  crafts,  con¬ 
tinually  increase.  Mighty  walls  and  temples  arise,  we 
hear  the  Celtic  war-cry;  then  the  tramp  of  Roman  le¬ 
gions.  Cagsar,  Tacitus,  send  us  their  message — prehis¬ 
tory  becomes  merged  into  history.  ’  ’ 1 


1  Robert  Forrer  ( loc .  cit.)  ;  p.  1. 


CHAPTER/  IV 


PREHISTORY  OF  AFRICA,  ASIA  AND  THE  OCEANIC  ISLANDS 

Relation  of  Europe  to  Asia  and  Africa — Prehistory  of  Africa — 
Remains  of  Cyclopean  Masonry  in  Maslionaland — Prehis¬ 
tory  of  Asia. 

55.  Relation  of  Europe  to  Asia  and  Africa. — It  is 
only  for  geographical  convenience  that  Europe  can  be 
spoken  of  as  a  continent.  Between  it  and  Asia  the  bound¬ 
ary  wall  is  less  high  and  less  formidable  than  that  which 
separates  western  North  America  from  the  Mississippi 
Basin,  and  the  sea  which  divides  it  from  Africa  is  not 
only  of  recent  appearance,  geologically  speaking,  but  is 
nearly  spanned  by  three  long  peninsulas,  reinforced  in 
part  by  large  islands  to  serve  as  stepping  stones.  For 
these  reasons  Europe  has  not  been  left  to  develop  its 
human  history  by  itself,  but  has  been  constantly  modi¬ 
fied  by  migrations  from  the  neighboring  continents.  As 
far  back  as  may  be  followed  by  written  documents  and 
sculptured  monuments,  Europe  has  been  isolated  for 
scarcely  a  moment,  but  has  been  the  scene  of  almost 
continuous  invasion,  sometimes  in  the  form  of  more  or 
less  organized  armies  or  military  conquests,  but  more 
often  as  the  gradual  encroachment  of  a  whole  people* 
a  tribal  migration. 

In  its  permanent  physical  effects  upon  the  population, 
the  influence  of  a  military  expedition  is  usually  slight, 
even  though  its  success  is  complete,  and  the  conquerors 

266 


AFRICA,  ASIA  AND  THE  OCEANIC  ISLANDS  267 


succeed  in  imposing  their  language  and  customs  upon 
the  conquered  race ;  for  here  the  invaders  consist  wholly 
of  males,  and  their  numbers  are  generally  much  less  than 
those  of  the  people  whom  they  subdue.  In  many  cases, 
too,  like  the  Huns,1  their  stay  is  temporary,  and  they 
leave  few  traces  of  themselves  save  a  trail  of  pillage  and 
carnage  which  a  comparatively  short  time  will  efface.  A 
tribal  migration,  on  the  other  hand,  where  the  warriors 
bring  with  them  their  wives  and  families  and  where  the 
advance  consists  of  a  slow  and  steady  pressure  in  a  given 
direction,  the  previous  inhabitants  will  give  way  before 
them  and  eventually  become  either  absorbed  into  or  re¬ 
placed  by  the  invading  race. 

Thus  the  invasion  of  Italy  by  Hannibal  left  practi¬ 
cally  no  Punic  strain  among  the  people  of  that  penin¬ 
sula  ;  the  furious  onslaught  of  the  Huns  passed  like  a 
fiery  scourge  over  Europe,  but  left  neither  straight  black 
hair  nor  slanting  eyes  to  mark  its  passage ;  and  even  the 
long  Roman  military  command  of  Britain  left  few  traces 
written  in  the  physiognomy  of  the  British  people.  Far 
different  were  such  invasions  as  that  of  the  Ostrogoths 
into  the  Po  valley,  or  the  Beni  Israel  into  Canaan.  Of 
the  journey  of  Theodoric  “the  emphatic  language  of 
contemporaries  justifies  us  in  saying  that  it  was  pre¬ 
eminently  a  nation,  in  all  its  strength  and  all  its  help¬ 
lessness,  that  accompanied  him.  His  own  family, 

1  Jornandes,  in  speaking  of  the  Huns,  during  their  great  inva¬ 
sion  of  Europe  in  the  middle  of  the  fifth  century,  says :  “They 
are  little  in  stature,  but  lithe  and  active  in  their  motions,  and 
especially  skilled  in  riding ;  broad-shouldered,  good  at  the  use 
of  bow  and  arrows ;  with  sinewy  necks,  and  always  holding  their 
heads  high  in  their  pride.  To  sum  up,  these  beings  under  the 
form  of  man  hide  the  fierce  nature  of  the  beast.” 

Cited  from  Hodgkins,  “Italy  and  Her  Invaders,”  vol.  i,  p.  244. 


268 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


mother,  sisters,  nephews,  evidently  were  with  him.  .  .  . 
As  with  the  chief,  so  with  the  people.  Procopins  says, 
'With  Theodoric  went  the  people  of  the  Goths,  putting 
their  wives  and  children,  and  as  much  of  their  furniture 
as  they  could  take  with  them,  into  their  wagons.’  5,1 

The  children  of  Israel  present  another  type  of  tribal 
migration,  since  their  state  of  civilization  had  been  for  a 
long  time  a  nomadic  one,  and  thus  their  migration  dif¬ 
fered  little  from  their  customary  mode  of  life.  It  be¬ 
came  a  definite  plan  at  first  only  in  the  minds  of  their 
leaders ;  and  the  goal  of  their  wanderings,  and  the  pur¬ 
pose  of  driving  out  or  killing  the  previous  inhabitants, 
developed  through  their  direction  and  at  their  instiga¬ 
tion.  On  leaving  Egypt  this  people  "journeyed  from 
Rameses  to  Succoth,  about  six  hundred  thousand  on 
foot,  that  were  men,  besides  children.  And  a  mixed 
multitude  went  up  also  with  them ;  and  flocks,  and 
herds,  even  very  much  cattle.”'  The  subsequent  his¬ 
tory  of  the  conquest  of  Israel  over  the  Canaanites,  espe¬ 
cially  the  account  of  their  wholesale  massacre  of  these 
previous  occupants,  could  have  but  one  outcome,  and 
that  of  a  complete  ethnic  replacement  in  that  region, 
more  complete,  in  fact,  than  that  of  the  Indians  of  New 
England  by  the  English  Puritans,  who  avowedly  took 
as  a  model  this  very  tribe. 

While,  now,  great  military  expeditions,  with  their  pro¬ 
found  influence  upon  political  and  social  conditions,  and 
their  insignificant  one  upon  ethnological  characteristics, 
are  essentially  a  modern  phenomenon,  since  they  depend 

1  Trans,  by  Hodgkins,  “Italy  and  Her  Invaders,”  vol.  iii,  pp. 
180-181. 

2  Exodus,  xiii,  37,  38. 


AFRICA,  ASIA  AND  THE  OCEANIC  ISLANDS  269 

so  largely  upon  extraneous  means  of  transportation,  a 
slow  tribal  migration  demands  nothing  which  could  not 
be  met  by  people  in  the  most  primitive  condition.  It  is 
thus  natural  to  suppose,  especially  as  the  curtain  of 
recorded  history  rises  upon  a  world  already  turbulent 
and  uneasy,  a  world  of  constant  change  of  equilibrium 
through  invasion  and  conquest  and  tribal  movement, 
that  the  same  conditions  extended  far  back  into  the  un¬ 
known  past,  and  even  that  the  first  recorded  deeds  of 
this  character  were  merely  the  continuation  of  an  un¬ 
recorded  series,  vastly  longer  than  that  of  which  we  have 
information.  The  extensive  steppes  north  of  the  Cas¬ 
pian  Sea,  where  the  Ural  chain  softens  down  into  a  suc¬ 
cession  of  low  hills,  or  disappears  altogether  amid  low¬ 
lands  and  marshes,  offer  to  an  Asiatic  horde,  traveling 
on  foot,  and  advancing  by  slow  stages,  an  open  gateway 
into  Europe,  while  for  a  race  that  has  knowledge  of 
even  the  crudest  sort  of  navigation  the  Danube,  reached 
from  the  Black  Sea,  offers  an  easy  road  into  the  very 
heart  of  the  continent.  From  Africa  the  way  to  Asia 
is  plain,  through  Suez  and  the  peninsula  of  Sinai ;  by 
the  aid  of  primitive  boats  Sicily,  Crete  and  Cyprus  could 
be  attained  and  colonized,  and  from  these  colonies  the 
mainland  of  Europe  could  be  reached  at  several  points. 
At  Gibraltar  the  two  lands  are  almost  in  contact. 

In  view  of  purely  geographical  conditions,  it  is  a  priori 
impossible  for  a  European  population  to  have  devel¬ 
oped  in  anything  like  isolation :  rather  have  various 
ethnic  strains  been  intermingled  here,  probably  from 
both  Asia  and  Africa,  and  have  produced  the  diversified 
peoples  of  present-day  Europe.  While  there  is  still 
much  disagreement  among  the  ethnologists  concerning 


270 


MAN'S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


the  original  ingredients  of  this  mixture,  a  broadly  rec¬ 
ognized  theory  considers  that  the  vivacious,  long-skulled, 
brunette  people  of  southern  Europe  were  immigrants 
from  North  Africa,  and  that  still  further  north  they 
have  everywhere  come  in  contact  with  a  short-headed 
race  of  Asiatic  invaders,  who  extend  in  a  broad  belt,  at 


Fig.  67. — Arrow  and  lance-heads  from  the  Eastern  Sahara. 

(After  Noel  in  L’ Anthropologie.) 

about  the  level  of  Switzerland,  entirely  across  the  conti¬ 
nent  to  the  coast  of  the  Atlantic ;  yet,  even  granting 
this,  who  may  presume  to  say  that  these  shadowy  mi¬ 
grations  were  the  first  in  this  region,  or  that  the  strains 
thus  introduced  were  themselves  of  pure  stock  and  homo¬ 
geneous  ? 


AFRICA,  ASIA  AND  THE  OCEANIC  ISLANDS  271 

56.  Prehistory  of  Africa. — It  is  thus  of  the  greatest 
importance  that  the  prehistorian  now  turns  to  the  two 
continents  closely  associated  with  Europe ;  Asia  and 
Africa,  for  it  is  to  these  lands  we  are  to  look  for  the 
origin  of  the  peoples  who  first  populated  Europe,  and 
probably  also  for  the  origin  of  the  human  race  itself. 
When,  about  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century,  the 
work  of  Boucher  de  Perthes  upon  the  paleoliths  of  the 
Somme  valley  began  to  bear  fruit,  and  stone  implements 
from  various  parts  of  Europe,  at  first  mainly  Scanda- 
navia  and  France,  began  to  fill  the  museums,  similar 
objects  were  brought  to  light  in  the  neighboring  conti¬ 
nents,  especialty  in  places  where,  as  in  Egypt  and  Syria, 
excavations  were  being  conducted  for  other  purposes. 
In  Africa  genuine  paleoliths  were  first  found  in  the  Nile 
valley,  deep  in  the  soil  upturned  in  the  excavation  of 
Egyptian  antiquities,  often,  indeed,  beneath  the  founda¬ 
tions  of  ancient  Egyptian  buildings  themselves,  point¬ 
ing  to  the  occupation  of  the  valley  of  the  Nile  ages 
before  this  first  historical  dynasty.  Thus  true  paleo¬ 
liths  of  flint  were  found  by  Arcelin  in  1869  at  Sakkara 
and  Gizeli,  among  the  great  pyramids  and  by  Hamy  and 
Lenormant  at  Thebes  in  the  same  year.  From  then  on 
paleoliths  were  reported,  with  ever  increasing  frequency, 
from  various  quarters  along  the  same  valley.  Zittel 
pushed  his  investigation  into  the  depths  of  the  Libyan 
desert,  far  from  present-day  oases,  and  found  paleoliths 
there  also,  proving  beyond  question  the  former  fertility 
of  that  region,  and  its  occupation  at  one  time  by  man. 
From  these  earlier  reports,  during  the  70’s  and  80 ’s  of 
the  previous  century,  the  discoveries  have  progressively 
multiplied,  until  now  the  area  of  distribution  of  paleo- 


terial,  however,  and  the  data  are  insufficient  for  attempt¬ 
ing  to  reconstruct  any  outline  of  African  prehistory. 

A  certain  type  of  megalithic  monument,  the  menhir, 
or  single  stone  column  of  vast  proportions,  occurs  scat¬ 
tered  across  the  northern  portions  of  the  continent. 
These,  on  the  one  hand,  are  continued  through  Morocco, 


272  MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 

liths  in  Africa  has  widely  extended,  and  includes,  be¬ 
sides  the  Nile  valley,  the  western  Sudan,  especially 
around  Timbuctoo,  and  the  valley  of  the  lower  Congo. 
The  study  is  still  in  the  stage  of  the  collection  of  ma- 


Fig.  68. — Po.'fhpr*  axes  of  the  NeoMthic  type  from  the 
Eastern  Sahara.  (After  Noel,  in  L’ Anthropologie.) 


AFRICA,  ASIA  AND  THE  OCEANIC  ISLANDS  273 

to  Spain,  and  thence  directly  to  France,  where  in  Brit¬ 
tany  such  structures  come  to  a  high  state  of  develop¬ 
ment;  while  proceeding  eastwards  to  Egypt,  they  are 
shown  in  finished  form  in  the  obelisk.  These  structures 
are  for  the  most  part  late  Neolithic,  or  possibly  early 
Bronze,  in  date,  and  their  occurrence  over  this  broad 
area,  and  across  the  Straits  of  Gibraltar,  suggests  a 
kinship  in  origin  and  indicates,  perhaps,  the  migration 
of  a  prehistoric  people  across  northern  Africa  and  up 
through  western  Europe ;  or  perhaps  only  the  conquest 
and  gradual  spread  of  power  and  influence  from  a  small 
center  over  alien  races. 

57.  Remains  of  Cyclopean  Masonry  in  Mashonaland. 
Interest  has  always  been  attached  to  possible  archeologi¬ 
cal  discoveries  in  those  parts  of  central  and  southern 
Africa  that  so  long  resisted  exploration,  and  from  time 
to  time  reports  have  been  spread  concerning  remarkable 
ruins  somewhere  in  those  parts,  of  which  the  local  tribes 
can  give  no  information.  Such  are  the  ruined  walls  of 
Cyclopean  masonry  at  Zimbabwe,  Mashonaland,  and  sim¬ 
ilar  structures  have  been  brought  to  light  in  other  parts 
of  the  same  general  region.  While  at  the  present  time 
little  can  be  postulated  concerning  all  such  ruins,  since 
many  of  them  have  not  only  never  been  excavated,  but 
have  not  even  been  carefully  described,  it  is  well  to  bear 
in  mind  that  no  reliance  can  be  placed  upon  the  native 
traditions  or  memory,  as  “no  native  appears  to  know 
anything  of  the  past,  unless  that  past  happens  to  have 
been  within  his  own  personal  recollection.  ”  1  It  is  also 
to  be  noted  that  a  neglected  building  or  wall  of  masonry, 

1 E.  M.  Andrews.  “The  ‘Webster’  Ruin  in  Southern  Rho¬ 
desia,”  in  Smithsonian  Quarterly,  No.  4,  1907-S,  p.  37. 


274 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


abandoned  in  a  tropical  jungle,  becomes  soon  overgrown 
with  vegetation,  and  takes  on  the  appearance  of  extreme 
age. 

The  recent  excavation  of  the  small  “  Webster  ”  ruin 
in  southern  Rhodesia  is  of  much  interest  as  a  typical 
illustration  of  this,  since  the  examination  failed  to  prove 
an  antiquity  of  more  than  two  centuries,  although  it  was 
not  learned  what  the  structure  was,  or  the  reason  for 


Fig.  69. — The  “Webster  Ruin”  in  Southern  Rhodesia.  (After  Andrews.) 


its  construction.  This  ruin,  discovered  by  white  men  in 
1892,  consists  of  a  nearly  circular  wall,  built  in  two  tiers. 
The  diameter  on  the  ground  is  about  fifty  feet,  and  the 
height  of  the  first  tier  nine  feet.  The  second  tier  is  set 
in  at  about  the  same  distance  as  the  height  of  the  first 
tier,  and  rises  upward  of  four  feet  above  the  other.  At 
one  side  is  left  a  gap  for  the  door,  beside  which,  and 


AFRICA,  ASIA  AND  THE  OCEANIC  ISLANDS  275 

upon  the  inner  tier,  there  is  a  little  extra  structure, 
three  feet  in  height,  capped  by  a  flat  stone.  The  stones 
of  which  the  structure  is  composed  are  rather  flat,  and 
average  about  thirty  pounds  each  in  weight.  They  are 
laid  in  irregular  courses,  and  are  without  mortar,  but 
are  in  places  reinforced  with  earth,  which  was  probably 
their  condition  throughout.  Outside  of  this  ruin  or 
“ temple’ ’  were  several  stone  slabs  set  nearly  erect  in 
the  ground,  as  though  marking  graves,  and  upon  an¬ 
other  side  were  small  stone  heaps,  also  thought  to  be 
graves. 

About  a  mile  to  the  north  of  this  ruin,  near  the  pres¬ 
ent  kraal  of  Chief  Ichickwanda,  is  found  another  similar 
structure,  though  somewhat  smaller,  the  walls  enclosing 
a  room  with  a  diameter  of  twelve  feet,  and  seven  feet  in 
height.  This  ruin  is  better  built  than  the  previous  one, 
and  the  stones  used  are  not  only  much  larger,  but  show 
some  attempt  at  having  been  dressed  into  shape.  Around 
this  structure  are  four  smaller  and  cruder  enclosures. 

In  spite  of  the  promising  appearance  of  both  of  these 
sites,  a  thorough  excavation  of  the  former,  made  by  Mr. 
E.  M.  Andrews  in  1906,  was  barren  of  results.  No 
human  bones  were  found,  even  in  the  “graves, ”  but  the 
disturbed  earth  was  filled  with  bones  of  the  antelope, 
shards  of  native  manufacture,  iron  spear  heads  and  other 
implements,  and  in  one  or  two  places  small  bits  of 
green  glass  and  even  smaller  fragments  of  bowls  of 
Nankin  china.  The  glass  can  be  traced  to  the  jars  used 
by  the  neighboring  Portuguese  for  wine,  and  the  china 
may  easily  have  come  from  the  same  source.  From  the 
evidence  presented,  the  excavator  was  convinced  that 
the  ruin  “cannot  be  earlier  than  the  end  of  the  six- 


276 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


teenth  century,  and  is  probably  later.  It  was  undoubt¬ 
edly  built  by  the  present  natives,  or  some  allied  tribe, 
either  for  defense,  or  more  probably  as  a  cemetery,  for 
the  disposal  of  their  dead.”  This  instance  is  cited  at 
length,  not  as  a  contribution  to  prehistory,  which,  in 
the  usual  sense,  it  is  not,  but  for  the  purpose  of  em¬ 
phasizing  the  two  points  previously  mentioned :  the 
short  memory  of  the  natives,  and  the  rapidity  with 
which,  in  a  tropical  country,  an  abandoned  structure 
assumes  the  appearance  of  extreme  age.  As  a  result  of 
the  first,  there  is  practically  no  true  history  in  any  por¬ 
tion  of  central  or  southern  Africa,  save  that  of  the  past 
two  hundred  years,  since  the  settlement  of  that  region 
by  white  people.  Before  this  time,  recent  as  it  is,  all 
is  prehistory  in  the  sense  that  it  is  unrecorded.  As 
with  America,  the  discovery  of  which  but  slightly  ante¬ 
dated  that  of  the  region  in  question,  little  can  be 
obtained  from  tradition,  something  may  be  learned 
through  the  study  of  the  various  tribal  languages  and 
the  physical  features,  but  the  main  reliance  must  be 
placed  upon  excavation,  for  the  records  held  in  the  soil 
are  for  the  most  part  permanently  preserved,  and — if 
the  work  is  carefully  done — chronologically  dated,  and 
cannot  fail  to  give  correct  clues  when  properly  read. 
It  is  idle  to  speculate  concerning  what  may  be  in  store 
for  us  in  the  future  in  this  regard,  yet  we  may  be 
confident  that  eventually  the  entire  history  of  man  upon 
this  continent  will  be  traced  as  elsewhere,  through  the 
results  of  his  activities  and  the  occasional  chance  pres¬ 
ervation  of  his  bones. 

58.  Prehistory  of  Asia. — Although  still  practically 
unknown  in  its  prehistory,  the  continent  of  Asia  holds, 


AFRICA,  ASIA  AND  THE  OCEANIC  ISLANDS  277 

without  much  doubt,  the  essential  data  for  the  study  of 
the  last  phases  in  the  development  of  the  human  race. 
It  is  true  that  the  soil  of  Europe  has  yielded,  in  chro¬ 
nological  succession,  a  series  of  forms  gradually 
approaching  the  present  type,  but  it  is  also  true  that 
there  is  yet  no  indication  of  a  European  origin  for  any 
of  these,  and  they  are  generally  looked  upon  as  suc¬ 
cessive  migrants  from  elsewhere,  either  Asia  or  Africa. 
Again,  the  Pithecanthropus ,  almost,  if  not  quite,  a 
direct  transition  form  between  Simians  and  man,  was 
found  in  the  island  of  Java,  closely  associated  with 
eastern  Asia,  and  while  in  itself  not  whollv  conclusive, 
is  yet  ci  marked  indication  that  the  origin  of  the  race 
was  Asiatic. 

When  Asiatic  prehistory  is  finally  studied,  it  will 
possess  an  advantage  over  that  of  Europe  in  the  ancient 
date  reached  by  actual  written  inscriptions,  since  they 
will  prove  of  the  greatest  value  in  dating  contemporary 
remains  elsewhere,  whatever  grade  of  culture  they  may 
represent.  In  other  words,  in  this  continent,  where 
recorded  history  dates  back  six  or  seven  millenia,  a 
quantity  of  data  will  be  eliminated  from  the  problem 
presented  to  the  prehistorian,  who  will  thus  be  enabled 
to  deal  wholly  with  periods  not  merely  relatively  an¬ 
cient,  but  actually  so. 

During  the  past  few  years  a  beginning  has  been  made 
in  this  more  ancient  Asiatic  history  by  the  discovery  of 
many  types  of  stone  implements  in  various  parts  of 
that  great  continent.  In  Syria,  at  first  about  the 
Lebanon  range  and  in  Palestine,  and  later  in  the  north, 
stone  implements  were  found,  representing  both  Paleo¬ 
lithic  and  Neolithic  culture,  while  in  that  country  the 


27S 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


Bronze  age  is  known  to  have  extended  between  about 
2000-1250  B.  C.,  and  ended  with  the  advent  of  the  Phil¬ 
istines,  who  introduced  iron. 

Still,  the  form  or  style  of  an  implement  does  not 
necessarily  prove  for  it  great  antiquity,  since  a  crude 
implement  may  often  be  used  for  a  bit  of  rough  work 
rather  more  effectively  and  with  more  economy  than 


Fig.  70. — Flint  axes  of  Acheulian  type,  from  the  North  of  Syria. 
(After  Arne,  in  L’ Anthrcpologie.) 


a  better  one.  Thus,  in  the  ancient  turquois  mines  on 
the  peninsula  of  Sinai,  worked  by  the  Egyptian  kings 
from  Snefru,  B.  C.  3122,  to  Raineses  II,  B.  C.  1326, 
are  found  the  crudest  type  of  stone  axes,  resembling 
the  coups-de-poing  of  the  European  Chellean  period 
yet  these  were  undoubedly  in  common  use  during  these 
comparatively  recent  times. 


AFRICA,  ASIA  AND  THE  OCEANIC  ISLANDS  279 

Aside  from  the  extreme  west  the  discovery  of  stone 
implements  has  been  reported  from  the  island  of  Cey¬ 
lon,  from  Tonkin,  the  French  colony  in  China,  and 
from  Japan.  The  prehistoric  studies  in  Ceylon1  were 
made  in  cave  deposits,  and  consist  of  Paleolithic  instru¬ 
ments  of  about  the  Magdalenian  type,  evidently  made 
and  used  by  a  small  human  race,  of  about  the  size  of 
the  present  Veddahs,  although  the  discoverers  feel  sure 
that  the  latter  could  have  had  no  connection  with  these 
deposits,  which  are  undoubtedly  of  great  age.  On  the 
other  hand,  implements  of  the  early  Paleolithic,  as  well 
as  of  the  Neolithic  and  Bronze  ages,  are  as  yet  unknown 
in  the  island,  although  axes  of  the  Chellean  type  occur 
on  the  adjacent  continent. 

The  investigation  in  Tonkin  2  was  that  of  a  cavern 
deposit  75  kilometers  north  of  Lang-Son,  and  consisted 
of  flint  and  bone  implements  of  a  crude  Neolithic  cul¬ 
ture,  together  with  one  or  two  pieces  of  shell  ornaments 
and  a  little  pottery.  The  absence  of  animal  bones  and 
the  presence  of  many  shells  of  Unio,  etc.,  suggest  that 
the  people  were  not  hunters,  but  subsisted  largely  upon 
vegetables  and  mollusks. 

In  Japan  the  study  of  prehistory  has  already  been 
prosecuted  to  a  considerable  extent,  with  the  result  of 
finding  many  traces  of  the  previous  existence  of  a  stone- 
age  culture  in  many  parts  of  the  J apanese  islands.  The 
remains  consist  of  extensive  kitchen-middens,  and  of 
traces  of  semi-subterranean  houses,  both  associated  with 

1 P.  Sarasin,  “Praehislorische  Ergebnisse  unserer  neusten  Reise 
im  Inneren  von  Ceylon.”  Korresp.  Bl.  d.  dentsch.  Ges.  fur 
Anthrop.  Bd.  38,  1907.  p.  94. 

2Mansuy,  M.  H.,  “Gisement  prehistoriqne  de  la  caverne  de 
Pho-Binh-Gia  (Tonkin).”  UAnthropologie,  T.  20,  1909,  p.  531. 


280 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


plentiful  artifacts.  Thus  far  these  remains  seem  to  in¬ 
dicate  the  former  presence  of  two  distinct  races,  the 
one,  limited  to  the  Ryu  Kyu  islands  and  Formosa,  the 
other  upon  the  two  largest  of  the  main  islands,  Yezo 
and  Nippon.  The  first  race  was  without  stone  arrow¬ 
heads,  and  its  pottery  never  possesses  a  trace  of  textile 
upon  its  surface ;  the  second  had  arrow-heads  of  stone, 
as  well  as  those  of  wood,  bone,  and  horn,  and  its  re¬ 
mains  yield  also  clay  figurines.  Some  authorities  do 
not  consider  either  race  to  have  been  the  direct  ances¬ 
tors  of  the  Ainus,  but  think  that  they  represent  pre- 
Ainu  peoples,  probably  the  “  Koropokguru  ’  ’  of  the  old 
Ainu  legends,  and  that  they  migrated  northwards  at 
the  coming  of  the  Ainus.  Others  consider  the  Koropok¬ 
guru  as  wholly  imaginary,  think  that  the  Ainus  were 
themselves  the  real  aborigines,  and  look  to  find  traces 
of  their  ancestors  among  these  early  remains.  The  cul¬ 
ture  of  these  prehistoric  peoples  was  Neolithic,  but 
their  pottery  seems  unlike  that  of  the  Ainus  of  the 
present  day. 1 

Such  fragmentary  notes  of  isolated  discoveries  are 
thus  far  all  that  can  be  presented  under  the  head  of 
the  prehistory  of  Asia,  but  it  must  be  remembered  that 
sixty  years  ago  the  study  of  European  prehistory  was 
equally  fragmentary,  and  with  the  facts  uncoordinated 
and  apparently  unrelated.  The  discoveries  thus  far  made 
tend  to  stimulate  interest  in  this  work,  and  emphasize 
the  statement  made  above  concerning  the  great  impor¬ 
tance  of  Asia  in  this  regard. 

1  For  a  recent  summary  of  the  work  of  Japanese  archeolo¬ 
gists,  cf.  Matsnmoto  on  “The  Stone  Age  People  of  Japan,”  in 
Amer,  Anthropologist,  Vol.  23,  1021,  pp.  50-70, 


AFRICA,  ASIA  AND  THE  OCEANIC  ISLANDS  281 

In  various  parts  of  Oceanica  occur  ruins  which  look 
ancient,  and  which  the  present  natives  do  not  connect 
with  the  former  history  of  their  own  race.  Both  this 
shortsightedness  of  anything  which  antedates  the  mem¬ 
ory  of  living  men,  and  the  ancient  appearance  of  ruins 
which  are  recent,  form  the  standpoint  of  an  archeolo¬ 
gist,  are  well  known  elsewhere ;  the  former  among  primi¬ 
tive  people  everywhere,  and  the  latter  in  the  tropics, 
where  recently  abandoned  ruins  are  left  to  the  mercy 
of  luxurious  tropical  vegetation,  and  thus  these  Oceanic 
ruins,  although  by  no  means  solved,  are  not  necessarily 
very  ancient.  There  may  be  mentioned  in  this  connec¬ 
tion,  the  cyclopean  walls  met  with  in  the  Carolines,  and 
more  especially  the  stone  statues  found  in  Easter  Island. 
This  island,  the  easternmost  of  the  South  Sea  group,  is 
within  about  two  thousand  miles  of  the  South  American 
coast,  and  belongs  to  Chile,  used  mainly  as  a  pasturage 
for  sheep.  The  island  is  volcanic,  and  is  covered  with 
statues  carved  from  the  lava  of  a  certain  mountain,  set 
with  their  backs  to  the  sea,  and  similar  to  one  another 
in  shape.  They  number  about  two  hundred,  besides 
almost  numberless  ones,  in  process  of  being  carved  in 
place,  and  evidently  destined  to  be  carried  away  from 
the  bed  rock,  and  set  in  place.  They  range  in  size  from 
six  feet  up  to  thirty,  and  one  of  the  uncompleted  ones 
still  on  the  mountain  is  sixty  feet  high.  Some  have  sug¬ 
gested  that  these  huge  ones  were  never  intended  to  be 
moved,  but  were  intended  for  high  reliefs  to  permanently 
adorn  the  cliffs.  The  isolated  figures  were  placed  upon 
high  foundations  of  masonry,  but  were  all  overthrown 
during  a  tribal  war  about  the  beginning  of  the  nine¬ 
teenth  century,  and  now  lie  on  their  backs.  They  are 


282 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


pleasantly  and  minutely  described  in  a  book  by  Mrs. 
Seoresby  Routledge,  about  1920,  and  form  the  subject 
of  an  illustrated  article  by  her  in  the  National  Geo¬ 
graphic  Magazine,  January,  1921. 


CHAPTER  V 


PREHISTORY  OF  THE  TWO  AMERICAS 


The  Problem  of  a  “New  World” — Supposed  Remains  of  Glacial 
Man  in  North  America — Claims  concerning  Pre-Indian  Re¬ 
mains  in  South  America — American  Stone  Implements — - 
American  Articles  of  Bone,  Shell,  and  Similar  Materials — 
American  Metal  Work — American  Basketry  and  Weaving- — 
American  Pottery — Classification  of  American  Aboriginal 
Objects — American  Architecture ;  Single  Dwellings  and 
Community  Houses — American  Architecture :  Remains  of 
Temples  and  Temple-Cities — American  Graves — Mounds, 
Funereal  and  Commemorative — American  Petroglyphs  and 
Other  Forms  of  Writing — Central  American  Glyphs  and 
Codices — Possible  Connection  between  the  Civilizations  of 
the  Eastern  and  Western  Worlds. 

59.  The  Problem  of  a  “New  World.” — To  under¬ 
take  the  study  of  the  prehistory  of  the  two  Americas  is 
to  engage  in  a  problem  for  which  no  foundation  stone 
has  been  laid  for  us;  a  field  of  research  unconnected 
with  the  course  of  recorded  history  save  within  the  past 
four  centuries.  This  vast  double  continent,  although 
occupying  an  entire  side  of  the  globe,  has,  until  this 
brief  space  of  time,  existed  as  a  world  apart,  and  the 
learning  of  Greece,  Rome,  Arabia,  and  later  Europe 
left  no  place  for  it  within  their  treasure-houses  of  ac¬ 
cumulated  knowledge.  When  however,  this  continent, 
literally  a  “New  World’ ’  as  it  was  well  called,  was 
first  discovered  and  then  explored  by  Europeans,  it  was 
found  to  be  everywhere  inhabited,  from  the  icy  fields  of 
the  far  north,  through  both  temperate  zones  and  the 

283 


2S4 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


intervening  torrid  area,  even  to  the  extreme  southern 
land  of  fire,  the  tierra  del  fuego. 

Hanging  in  culture  throughout  the  various  phases  of 
the  Neolithic,  from  the  crudest  to  the  most  superior, 
passing  even  beyond  its  hounds  in  a  few  favorable 
regions,  where  hardened  copper  took  the  place  of  the 
more  typical  bronze,  the  inhabitants  are  of  a  single 
ethnic  type.  Although  varying  in  complexion,  the  most 
superficial  of  somatic  characters,  from  a  light  skin, 
approaching  that  of  the  European,  to  a  deep  brown 
like  that  of  many  negroes;  varying  also  quite  as  much 
in  costume,  in  house  building,  in  foods,  and  in  indus¬ 
tries;  unlike  in  language,  and  even  in  the  word  roots 
employed  for  the  commonest  conceptions ;  they  are 
yet  of  one  homogeneous  race.  Everywhere  the  straight 
black  hair,  low  and  often  slanting  foreheads,  with  high 
cheek  bones  placed  far  apart,  large  noses  of  medium 
breadth  and  well  accentuated,  mark  them  as  members 
of  that  race  which,  by  an  unfortunate  mistake  of  the 
first  explorers,  has  become  universally  known  as 
“Indian.” 

From  this  sweeping  conclusion,  however,  the  Eskimo 
may  be  excepted,  and  these  little  Arctic  men  are  per¬ 
haps  better  considered  as  late  wanderers  from  the  camps 
of  similar  Arctic  peoples  of  northeastern  Siberia,  who 
could  easily  have  spread  across  Behring  Strait  to  their 
present  location.  Yet  if  the  true  “Indians”  populated 
America  from  northeastern  Asia  in  the  first  place,  as 
seems  likely,  there  can  be  no  profound  racial  difference 
between  them. 

This  assertion  of  the  ethnical  homogeneity  of  the 
American  Indians  does  not  necessarily  bring  with  it 


PREHISTORY  OF  THE  TWO  AMERICAS 


285 


the  corollary  that  such  was  always  the  case,  or  that 
the  present  race  were  the  first  and  only  occupants  of 
the  Americas.  While  the  prevailing  opinion  has  long 
been,  and  perhaps  still  is,  that  the  Indians  were  the 
first  and  only  comers  to  the  New  World  previous  to  its 
discovery  by  Europeans,  there  are  those  who,  indepen¬ 
dently  in  the  case  of  the  northern  and  southern  conti¬ 
nents,  maintain  the  existence  of  one  or  more  pre-Indian 
American  races,  and  the  assertion  has  even  been  stoutly 
maintained  by  some  that  it  was  upon  American  soil, 
rather  than  in  any  part  of  the  Old  World,  that  primitive 
humanity  completed  the  chain  of  development  that 
ended  in  the  formation  of  the  genus  Homo.  In  North 
America  skeleton  remains  have  been  found  from  time  to 
time,  in  various  parts  of  the  country,  such  as  the  “  Cala¬ 
veras  skull,  ’  ’  the  ‘  ‘  Lansing  skull,  ’  ’  the  ‘  ‘  Nebraska  man,  ’  ’ 
and  so  on,  for  which,  because  of  the  antiquity  of  the  de¬ 
posit  in  which  they  were  found,  or  because  of  certain 
primitive  features  in  the  bones  themselves,  or  because  of 
both,  a  considerable  age  has  been  claimd,  usually  a  Gla¬ 
cial  age  and  a  Paleolithic  culture;  but  the  most  careful 
investigations  of  these  remains  by  sober-minded  and 
conservative  men  have  thus  far  resulted  in  the  failure 
to  prove  these  claims.  Definite  proof  of  geological  age 
is  in  every  case  lacking,  and  the  remains  themselves 
show  no  physical  features  unlike  those  of  modern 
Indians.1 

60.  Supposed  Remains  of  Glacial  Man  in  North 

1  Hrdlicka,  “Skeletal  Remains  Suggesting  or  Attributed  to 
Early  Man  in  North  America.”  Bureau  Am.  Ethnol.,  Bull.  No. 
53,  Washington,  1907.  For  the  other  side  cf.  Gilder,  in  Ameri¬ 
can  Anthropologist,  1908,  pp.  GO-73;  also  in  Records  of  the  Past, 
May-June,  1911. 


286 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


America. — In  one  part  of  the  country  only  are  any¬ 
thing  like  adequate  proofs  submitted  for  the  existence 
of  a  pre-Indian  race,  or  of  men  of  a  true  Paleolithic 
culture,  and  this  is  in  the  Delaware  valley,  in  and 
immediately  about  the  city  of  Trenton.  Here,  in  1873, 
Dr.  A.  C.  Abbott,  a  resident,  discovered  in  the  Trenton 
gravels,  of  undoubted  Glacial  age,  an  abundance  of 
what  appeared  to  be  large  paleoliths  of  simple  con¬ 
struction,  much  like  those  first  found  by  Boucher-de- 
Perthes  in  the  gravels  of  the  Somme  valley,  northern 
France.  The  most  characteristic  was  that  of  the  ‘  ‘  turtle 
back,”  an  implement  somewhat  similar  to  the  coup-de- 
poing  of  the  French  gravels,  yet  other  forms  were  not 
wanting,  and  all  were  found  in  place,  several  feet 
below  the  surface,  in  undoubted  glacial  gravel. 

Although  Abbott’s  discoveries  convinced  several  ex¬ 
perienced  observers  during  the  next  two  decades,  among 
others  N.  S.  Shaler  of  Harvard,  and  W.  Boyd-Dawkins, 
the  noted  English  archeologist,  yet  still  others,  like 
Joseph  Leidy,  were  not  convinced  of  the  antiquity  of 
these  artifacts,  and  in  1893  W.  IT.  Holmes  of  the  U.  S. 
Bureau  of  Ethnology  stated  definitely  that  the  Trenton 
implements  were  merely  “wasters”  or  “objects,”  cast 
away  by  modern  Indians  whose  village  sites  occupied 
the  surface  above  the  gravel.1  In  holding  this  opinion 
it  is  plainly  necessary  to  reject  all  proofs  that  these 
objects  had  really  been  found  in  place  in  undisturbed 
glacial  gravel,  and,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  earlier 
excavations  seem  to  have  been  conducted  with  some 


1  W.  H.  Holmes,  “Are  There  Traces  of  Man  in  the  Trenton 
Gravels?”  Journal  of  Geology .  Vol.  I,  Jan. -Feb.,  1893.  Cf.  also 
H.  C.  Mercer  in  Amer.  Nat.,  Nov.,  1S93. 


PREHISTORY  OF  THE  TWO  AMERICAS 


287 


lack  of  precision,  and  furnish  no  positive  proof  con¬ 
cerning  the  original  position  of  the  objects.  The  prob¬ 
lem  had  become,  as  expressed  by  Mercer,  in  1897,  “nar¬ 
rowed  down  to  evidence  produced  at  one  site,  and 
to  a  question  of  observation  of  individuals.”1 

An  excellent  resume  of  this  Trenton  gravel  problem 
is  the  recently  published  report  of  Ernest  Volk,  in 
which  are  embodied  the  results  of  his  indefatigable 
labors  for  twenty-two  years  in  and  about  the  city  of 
Trenton.2  In  this  region  he  finds  both  bones  and  arti¬ 
facts  of  three  successive  human  races,  which  he  desig¬ 
nates  in  order,  from  above  downward:  (1)  The  Dweller 
of  the  Black  Soil.  (2)  The  Dweller  of  the  Yellow  Soil. 
(3)  Glacial  Man. 

The  “black  soil”  is  the  surface  loam,  and  its  “dwel¬ 
ler”  is  the  modern  Indian,  whose  plentiful  artifacts 
occur  everywhere  upon  and  within  this  deposit,  and 
who,  in  his  deeper  excavations,  such  as  graves,  fire- 
pits,  and  post-holes,  carries  the  black  soil  with  him, 
producing  intrusions,  or  disturbances  from  above,  in 
the  subjacent  layers. 

In  contrast  with  this  race,  and  much  older,  is  the 
one  whose  artifacts  occur  at  Trenton  in  a  layer  of 
yellow  sand  immediately  underlying  the  loam  and  so 
closely  related  to  the  surrounding  matrix  that  they  must 
have  been  contemporary  with  its  deposition.  The  arti¬ 
facts  of  this  period  are  limited  to  crude  implements  of 

1  H.  C.  Mercer,  “Researches  Upon  the  Antiquity  of  Man,”  Publ. 
Univ.  Penna.  Series  in  Philogy,  Literature,  and  Archeology. 
Vol.  VI,  1897,  p.  85. 

2  Ernest  Volk,  “The  Archeology  of  the  Delaware  Valley.” 
Papers  of  the  Peabody  Museum,  Cambridge,  Vol.  V,  Aug.,  1911 
(the  entire  volume,  25S  pp.  and  125  plates). 


288 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


argillite,  and  to  quarzite  pebbles  broken  by  fracturing 
and  by  fire.  Traces  of  skeletons  of  the  yellow  drift 
man  himself,  lying  beneath  undisturbed  layers  of  strati¬ 
fied  sand,  show  them  to  have  been  large  and  well-built, 
but  the  bones  have  hitherto  proved  too  fragile  to  allow 
satisfactory  disinternment.1 

Of  the  man  of  the  true  glacial  gravels,  beneath  the 
yellow  drift,  Volk  obtained  but  a  few  doubtful  frag¬ 
ments  ;  the  middle  and  upper  portion  of  the  shaft  of  a 
femur,  and  three  partial  fragments  which  fit  together. 
If  we  accept  Mr.  Volk’s  careful  statements  concerning 
their  position  when  found,  they  must  be  considered  suf¬ 
ficient,  few  as  they  are,  to  prove  the  existence  of  man 
in  this  valley,  contemporaneously  with  the  more  recent 
deposits  of  the  glaciers,  but  there  are  reasons  for 
doubt.  The  femur  seemed  to  have  been  shaped  arti¬ 
ficially  to  form  a  handle  for  some  implement,  and  its 
human  origin  is  not  sure.  All  the  fragments  were 
badly  ground  and  worn,  as  if  by  the  rough  treatment 
to  which  glacial  material  is  usually  subjected.  In 
form,  however,  the  skeletal  fragments  are  not  in  any 
way  unusual,  and  may  easily  have  been  those  of  the 
modern  type  of  Indian,  save  for  the  supposed  geological 
relationships  of  the  pieces.2 

The  latest  claim  for  Quaternary  man  in  North 
America  arises  from  the  discovery  of  human  bones  in 
Vero,  on  the  east  coast  of  Florida,  under  circumstances 
which  seem  to  date  them  well  within  glacial  times. 

1  For  the  most  recent  paper  on  the  human  remains  from  the 
yellow  soil.  of.  that  by  Leslie  Spier  in  Antlirop.  Papers  of  the 
Amer.  Mus.  Nat.  History,  Vol.  22,  New  York,  1918. 

2  Hrdlicka,  Report,  given  as  an  appendix  to  the  paper  of 
Volk,  1911,  above  cited. 


PREHISTORY  OF  THE  TWO  AMERICAS  289 

This  find  w.as  made  in  1916,  while  digging  a  drainage 
canal,  and  consists  of  four  human  skeletons,  in  close 
association  with  the  bones  of  Pleistocene  animals,  such 
as  the  mastodon,  the  giant  ground  sloth  (Megatherium), 
the  bison,  and  the  wild  horse.  Upon  investigation  of 
the  spot  by  0.  P.  Hay  and  A.  Hrdlicka,  the  former 
of  the  Carnegie  Institute  at  Washington,  the  latter  of 
the  Smithsonian  Institution,  opinions  became  divided, 
Dr.  Hay  feeling  that  the  human  bones  were  contempo¬ 
raneous  with  the  associated  animal  bones;  and  Dr. 
Hrdlicka  believing  them  to  be  not  ancient,  but  the  result 
of  intrusive  burial  at  some  relatively  modern  date.1 

This  latter  fate,  that  of  not  being  considered  ancient, 
has  befallen  the  “ Cuzco  man,”  a  product  of  the  Yale 
expedition  to  Peru  in  1911.  This  was  at  first  consid¬ 
ered  to  be  of  “ glacial  age,”  by  the  discoverers,  but  its 
claim  to  antiquity  was  later  disproved  by  the  discoverers 
themselves. 

61.  Claims  Concerning  Pre-Indian  Remains  in  South 
America. — While,  up  to  the  present,  the  northern  con¬ 
tinent  has  furnished  few  signs  of  human  activity  before 
the  arrival  of  the  red  man,  South  America  has  yielded 
a  number  of  remains  upon  which  claims  have  been  based, 
as  attesting  the  presence  not  only  of  genuine  pre-Indian 
human  beings,  but  of  so  many  and  such  significant  trans- 
tion  forms  as  to  suggest  seriously  this  continent,  rather 
than  any  part  of  the  Old  World,  as  the  land  of  origin 
of  the  human  race.  These  discoveries,  which  have  been 


1  A.  Hrdlicka.  “Recent  Discoveries  Attributed  to  Early  Man 
in  America.”  Bull.  Bureau  Amer.  Eth..  No.  66,  1918.  Tlie  other 
side  is  ably  supported  by  Hay,  in  Amer.  Anthropol.,  Yol.  20, 
pp.  1-36,  1918. 


290 


MAN’S  TREHISTORIC  PAST 


heralded  in  rapid  succession  within  the  last  few  years, 
have  naturally  not  only  provoked  discussion,  but  have 
attracted  to  South  American  soil  many  eminent  anthro¬ 
pologists  and  paleontologists,  who  have  variously  esti¬ 
mated  the  value  of  the  discoveries.1 

This  great  activity  had  its  focus  and  point  of  origin 
in  a  single  man,  the  late  Dr.  Florentino  Ameghino  of 
the  Museo  Nacional,  Buenos  Aires,  who,  although  ably 
seconded  by  other  savants,  has  been  the  central  figure  in 
the  movement.  Early  in  the  development  of  this  work, 
perhaps  too  early  for  more  than  a  fancy  sketch,  Ame¬ 
ghino  postulated  the  probable  steps  in  the  upward  devel¬ 
opment  of  man,  and  embodied  this  in  a  phylogenetic 
tree,  unique  in  character  and  decidedly  unlike  those  of 
other  anthropologists.  In  this  scheme  a  succession  of 
small  creatures  in  the  Cretaceous  period,  Clenialites, 
Pitheculites,  etc.,  leads  up  to  the  “primitive  Homin- 
icke,  ”  which,  by  a  process  of  “bestilization”  develop  into 
the  anthropomorphic  apes  of  the  present  day. 

Continuing,  on  the  other  hand,  along  a  still  general- 


1  These  remains  have  been  for  the  most  part  found  and 
described  by  the  late  Dr.  Florentino  Ameghino  (d.  1912), 
whose  delineations  and  theories  excited  all  Europe.  Several 
noted  European  savants  made  the  journey  to  Argentina  to 
see  the  material  and  the  sites,  among  whom  were  the  geologist 
Steinmann,  who  returned  unconvinced,  and  the  anthropologist 
Eehmann-Nitsche,  who  gave  some  credence  to  the  finds.  The 
latest,  and  probably  the  most  important,  visit,  was  that  of 
Ilrdlicka  of  the  Smithsonian  Institution  in  1911,  who  studied 
both  the  specimens  and  the  sites  in  company  with  Ameghino 
himself,  and  with  the  most  favorable  opportunities  for  investi¬ 
gation.  As  related  in  detail  in  his  final  report  (Bureau  of 
Ethnol.,  Bull  No.  52.  1912),  he  found  nothing  to  support  Ame- 
ghino's  claims.  The  bones  in  all  cases  proved  to  be  either 
those  of  Indians  of  the  present  race,  or  of  well-known  extinct 
animals. 


PREHISTORY  OF  THE  TWO  AMERICAS  291 

ized  path,  came  the  successive  genera  of  T etraprothomo , 
Triprothomo,  Diprothomo,  Prothomo,  and  finally  Homo , 
while  the  successive  lines  of  differentiation  from  these 
gave  rise  to  such  forms  as  Pithecanthropus,  and  Pseud- 
homo  heidelbergensis.  At  the  time  this  tree  was  con¬ 
structed  many  of  the  stages,  some  of  which  were  of 
fundamental  importance,  were  not  known  from  actual 
specimens,  but  certain  of  these  deficiencies  were  later 
supplied,  in  part  from  new  discoveries  of  Primate  mate¬ 
rial,  and  in  part  from  remains  already  stored  in  the 
museums  of  South  America,  and  perhaps  wrongly  esti¬ 
mated  hitherto.  Thus  an  atlas,  discovered  by  Ameghino 
in  1887,  and  named  by  Lehmann-Nitsche  Homo  neogceus, 
was  brought  into  line  with  a  curiously  shaped  femur 
from  the  same  deposit,  the  Tertiary  of  Monte  Hermosa, 
and  named  Tetrapjrothomo  argentinus,  thus  filling  an 
important  blank  in  the  phylogenetic  tree.  The  chance 
discovery  in  1896,  during  the  construction  of  a  drydock 
in  the  harbor  of  Buenos  Aires,  of  the  frontal  bone  of 
an  apparently  very  low  type,  filled  for  Ameghino 
another  gap,  and  the  piece  was  named  Diprothomo 
platensis.1 

Claims  so  astonishing  and  revolutionary  in  character 
as  these  naturally  aroused  not  only  the  attention  but  also 
the  criticism  of  the  entire  scientific  world,  who,  when 
furnished  with  the  necessary  casts  and  photographs, 
subjected  the  entire  evidence  to  a  rigid  examination. 

1  Ameghino,  “Le  Diprothromo  platensis,  nn  precurseur  de 
l’homme  du  pliocene  inferieur  de  Buenos  Aires.”  An.  del 
Museo  Nacional  de  Buenos  Aires,  1909.  For  a  critical  study 
of  the  South  American  finds  of  Ameghino,  which  includes  the 
account  of  a  personal  investigation  of  the  sites,  cf.  Bureau 
Amer.  Ethnol.,  Bull.  No.  52,  by  Hrdlicka  and  others. 


Fig.  71.— Ameghino’s  “Diprothomo  platensis,”  as  restored  by  him  from  the 
debatable  fragment.  (From  Schwalbe,  after  Ameghino.) 


Fig.  72. — Ameghir.o's  “Dipr  thomo” ;  the  fragment  in  two  positions.  In  or.e 
of  these,  that  indicated  by  the  dotted  lines,  the  fragment  is  s  anted  back¬ 
wards,  as  was  done  by  Ameghino,  and  appears  as  in  Fig.  71,  representing  an 
extremely  low  type.  In  the  position  ind’eated  by  the  full  lines  the  same 
fragment  is  placed  correctly,  and  becomes  quite  human,  with  nothing  un¬ 
usual  about  it.  (After  Schwalbe.) 


PREHISTORY  OF  THE  TWO  AMERICAS 


203 


Schwalbe  1  examined  the  frontal  bone  from  the  drydock, 
the  “  Diprothomo  platensis”  of  Ameghino,  and  proved 
beyond  question  that  the  bone  was  in  every  feature  that 
of  the  modern  species  of  man,  in  all  probabiliity  that  of 
a  native  Indian,  and  that  the  appearance  of  an  extremely 
low,  retreating  forehead  had  been  given  simply  by  a 
wrong  orientation  of  the  piece  in  its  relation  to  the 
entire  head.  The  ease  with  which  such  a  mistake  may 
be  made  will  be  seen  by  any  student  if  he  will  take 
in  his  hand  a  detached  frontal  portion  of  a  human 
skull  and  try  to  place  it  in  what  seems  a  natural  posi¬ 
tion. 

The  Tetraprothomo,  as  it  consists  of  two  separate 
bones,  an  atlas  and  a  femur,  still  allows  several  opinions, 
and  as  the  discovery  of  the  latter  is  so  recent,  a  compar¬ 
atively  small  amount  has  been  written  upon  it  as  yet. 
Lahmann  Nitsche  2  considers  the  atlas  not  quite  human, 
but  belonging  to  some  precursor  whom  he  names  Homo 
neogceus  (the  man  of  the  New  World),  but  most  others 
(e.  g.  Schwalbe  and  Hrdlicka),  find  in  it  no  essential 
difference  from  the  corresponding  bone  in  modern  South 
American  Indians.  Concerning  the  femur,  the  criticism 
is  still  more  severe,  since,  as  Hrdlicka  has  recently 
shown,  it  seems  more  than  likely  to  be  that  of  a  Tertiary 
member  of  the  Felidce,  that  is,  a  fossil  cat  of  unknown 
species. 


1 G.  Schwalbe,  “Studien  zur  Morphologie  der  Siidamerikan- 
isehen  Primatinforen.”  Zeits.  Morph,  u.  Anthrop.,  Bd.  13,  1910 
pp.  209-288. 

2  Leliman-Nitsche  (in  collaboration*  with  others)  :  “Xoovelles 
researches  snr  la  formation  pampeenne  et  riiomme  fossile  de 
la  Repnblique  Argentine.”  Revista  del  Mnseo  de  La  Plata, 
Buenos  Aires,  1907. 


294 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


Thus,  in  the  light  of  recent  criticism,  European  and 
North  American,  the  extravagant  claims  of  South  Amer¬ 
ica  as  the  cradle  of  the  human  race  are  becoming  rap¬ 
idly  disproved,  and  with  these  there  fall  also  the  numer¬ 
ous  supposed  cases  of  human  remains  of  Quaternary 
date,  such  as  those  of  the  cave  deposits  of  Lagoa  Santa 
(Minas  Geraes,  Brazil),  those  of  the  Pampean  deposits 
of  Buenos  Aires,  and  those  of  Patagonia.  Hrdlicka,  in 
the  work  just  cited  (Bulletin  52,  1912),  assisted  by 
several  other  specialists,  has  reviewed  in  order  each  of 
the  more  prominent  and  likely  cases,  not  only  studying 
the  original  specimens,  but  visiting  also  the  site  of  the 
excavation,  and  wherever,  indeed,  the  bones  are  human, 
they  are  in  no  way  unlike  those  of  the  modern  Indian  of 
the  region.  In  all  cases,  also,  the  geological  conditions 
are  indefinite,  and  show  at  least  the  possibility  of  a  late 
intrusion  of  the  remains  with  the  deposit  in  which  they 
were  found. 

The  southern  continent,  when  carefully  studied,  but 
corroborates  the  teaching  of  the  northern,  that  the  native 
Indian,  himself  a  late  comer,  geologically  speaking, 
found  the  entire  continent  devoid  of  all  human  inhab¬ 
itants,  and  that,  furthermore,  with  the  single  possible 
exception  of  the  Delaware  valley,  where  the  testimony 
is  still  slight,  nothing  human  had  previously  either  arisen 
or  appeared  there.  A  “New  World,”  as  the  Americas 
seemed  to  the  European  voyagers  of  four  centuries  ago, 
this  twin  continent  is  in  a  larger  sense  a  new  world  to 
the  entire  human  race :  a  world  where  the  human  species 
was,  perhaps,  first  seen  at  the  time,  geologically  mod¬ 
ern,  when  the  immediate  precursors  of  the  Indians  first 
found  their  way  over  from  the  Eastern  Hemisphere. 


PREHISTORY  OF  THE  TWO  AMERICAS 


295 


By  what  route  or  routes  this  was  accomplished,  whether 
by  Behring  Strait  from  northeastern  Asia,  whether 
from  Polynesia  or  the  coast  of  Africa  in  drifting 
canoes,  or  whether  by  some  former  land  bridge  now 
lost  beneath  the  waters,  we  cannot  say,  nor  have  the 
Indians  themselves  any  traditions  that  bear  upon  the 
problem. 

All  that  can  be  asserted,  and  that  without  too  much 
positiveness,  is  that,  still  with  the  possible  exception  of 
the  recent  finds  in  the  Delaware  valley,  there  is  nothing 
to  indicate  a  long  occupancy  of  American  soil  by  the 
Indian.  His  culture  in  various  regions  represents  about 
every  phase  of  the  Neolithic,  as  shown  in  Europe,  and 
in  a  few  places  the  entrance  into  an  age  corresponding 
to  that  of  the  Bronze,  but  even  if  all  this  development 
was  run  through  after  reaching  America,  which  is  by  no 
means  certain,  the  time  required,  as  measured  by  the 
data  furnished  by  research  in  Europe,  would  be  but  a 
few  thousand  years — eight,  or  ten  at  most. 

The  whole  subject  is,  however,  still  open.  The  con¬ 
tinued  study  of  the  Trenton  gravel,  and  of  the  yellow 
drift  lying  between  it  and  the  superficial  black  soil,  may 
yield  something  certain.  The  North  American  claimants 
to  age,  like  the  skulls  of  Calaveras  and  Long’s  Hill,  may 
yet  be  reinstated  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  definite  proofs 
of  age  are  wanting;  and  it  must  be  kept  in  mind  that 
even  a  complete  disavowal  of  claims  of  extreme  age  in 
the  case  of  all  South  American  material  hitherto 
unearthed  does  not  prove  that  no  such  specimens  may 
ever  be  found  within  that  continent.  The  more  conser¬ 
vative  view,  however,  still  is  that  the  Indian  was  a  com¬ 
paratively  late  arrival,  that  he  found  the  continent  at 


296 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


the  time  of  his  advent  entirely  unoccupied  by  human 
beings,  and  that  we  have  as  yet  no  absolutely  definite 
records  of  any  previous  race  who  may  have  occupied  a 
portion  of  it  at  an  earlier  time.1 

62.  American  Stone  Implements . — The  best  known 
stone  implements  are  the  “arrow-heads”  or  points,  which 
are  rather  commonly  scattered  over  the  country,  always 
upon  or  near  the  surface,  and  are  familiar  objects  to 
farmers  and  others  engaged  in  work  that  disturbs 
the  surface  soil.  They  are  also  frequent  in  Indian 
shell-mounds,  about  aboriginal  village  sites,  and  in 

1  Never,  even  at  the  time  of  the  early  explorers,  were  the 
American  Indians  spread  over  the  entire  country.  They  lived 
for  the  most  part  in  scattered  villages,  each  with  its  “chief" 
and  leading  men,  and  of  these  chiefs  now  one  and  now  another 
— apparently  by  the  force  of  his  personal  character — gained  a 
supremacy,  more  or  less  complete,  over  the  surrounding  ter¬ 
ritory.  New  England,  at  the  time  it  was  decimated  by  the 
plague  of  1616-18,  was  thickly  settled  from  the  Indians’  point 
of  view,  yet  as  counted  by  such  men  as  Daniel  Gookin  and 
Roger  Williams,  who  traveled  among  the  tribes  and  knew  them 
intimately,  the  largest  villages  numbered  but  a  few  hundreds 
each.  An  Indian  population,  except  in  the  case  of  the  Pueblo 
tribes,  who  inhabit  permanent  structures,  shows  a  tendency 
towards  a  slow  shifting  or  migration,  so  that  in  the  course  of 
a  few  centuries  the  position  of  important  tribes  could  change 
considerably.  There  are,  for  example,  good  indications  that 
the  Pequots  and  Mohegans  of  Connecticut,  whom  the  Colonists 
found  in  possession  of  territories  with  fairly  definite  boun¬ 
daries,  had  migrated  to  this  part  of  the  country  some  three  to 
four  hundred  years  before  from  further  northwest,  and  prob¬ 
ably  the  Niantics,  whom  they  dispossessed,  had  settled  there 
but  a  few  centuries  before  them,  at  the  longest.  Throughout 
southern  New  England  the  sites  of  Indian  villages  and  ceme¬ 
teries,  laid  bare  by  the  spade,  were  known  as  such  by  the 
settlers  of  the  seventeenth  century,  and  no  really  prehistoric- 
sites,  unmentioned  in  the  traditions  of  the  white  people,  have 
been  found.  This  speaks  strongly  for  the  recency  of  occupation 
by  members  of  the  human  race  in  the  region  specified,  and 
suggests  the  gradual  spread  of  the  Indians  over  a  virgin 
country  within  a  measurable  time. 


Fig.  73. — American  aborigines  at  work  in  a  native  quarry  workshop.  From  a 
group  in  plaster,  prepared  by  Dr.  W.  H.  Holmes  for  the  World’s  Columbian 
Exposition  in  Chicago  in  1893.  (After  Holmes.) 


29S  MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 

graves — indeed,  in  the  latter  place,  often  found  im¬ 
bedded  in  vertebra  or  the  skull,  plainly  the  cause  of 
death. 

But  aside  from  chance  finds,  such  objects  are  more 
closely  associated  with  the  Indians  themselves,  or  with 
traditions,  for  not  only  were  the  natives  equipped  with 
stone-tipped  arrows  at  the  time  of  the  discovery,  but  the 
use  of  these  and  other  forms  of  stone  implements  has 
continued  in  places  to  the  present  time.  Thus  it  has 
been  possible  as  late  as  the  latter  part  of  the  nineteenth 
century  to  observe  directly  and  describe  the  aboriginal 
methods  of  manufacture  of  flints  and  other  stone  imple¬ 
ments,  and  more  than  one  archeologist  lias  learned  to 
manufacture  excellent  artifacts,  which,  in  their  details 
such  as  chipping  and  retouching,  closely  resemble  those 
of  aboriginal  make.1  This  work  is  laborious  and  diffi¬ 
cult  to  learn,  and  Catlin  remarks  that  “  great  skill  was 
required,  and  a  thorough  knowledge  of  the  nature  of 
each  stone,  a  slight  difference  in  quality  necessitating 
a  totally  different  manner  of  treatment.  ” 

Aside  from  the  points  there  are  numerous  other  types 
of  stone  implements  made  and  used  by  the  American 
aborigines,  both  within  historic  times  and  earlier.  These 
are  mainly  Neolithic  in  grade  of  workmanship,  although, 
as  always  among  Neolithic  culture,  cruder,  roughly  fin- 

1  The  most  important  work  dealing  with  aboriginal  methods 
of  manufacturing  stone  implements  is  W.  H.  Holmes’s  “Hand¬ 
book  of  Aboriginal  American  Antiquities,”  published  as  Bull. 
No.  60  of  the  Bureau  of  Ethnology,  1916.  In  an  extensive 
paper  on  “Stone  Implements  of  the  Potomac-Chesapeake  Tide¬ 
water  Province”  (Bureau  of  Eth.,  Yol.  15,  1S93-94),  W.  H. 
Holmes  describes  the  technique  requisite  in  the  case  of  many 
kinds  of  material,  and  in  PI.  Cl  1 1  are  given  some  implements 
of  his  own  manufacture,  produced  by  wholly  aboriginal  methods. 


PREHISTORY  OF  THE  TWO  AMERICAS 


299 


ished  forms,  were  also  in  common  use  for  the  coarser 
work.1 

The  stone  artifacts  most  commonly  met  with  are  the 
so-called  “arrow-heads, ”  which  really  consist  in  large 
part  of  points  used  for  tipping  arrows,  but  among 
which,  and  commonly  confused  with  them,  are  many 
other  kinds  of  implements,  such  as  knives,  scrapers, 
borers,  and  so  on.  Axes,  both  grooved  and  ungrooved, 
are  frequent,  as  are  also  chisels  and  gouges,  spades,  ban¬ 
ner-stones,  and  the  like.2  The  most  of  these  were  origi¬ 
nally  associated  with  handles,  or  other  essential  parts  of 
wood  or  leather,  so  that  in  their  present  denuded  condi¬ 
tion,  they  give  but  a  slight  suggestion  of  the  really 
effective  implements  they  once  were.3  Stone  mortars 
and  other  stone  dishes  are  rare,  but  are  likely  to  be  met 
with  in  any  part  of  North  America,  often  in  association 
with  the  pestles  used  in  grinding  corn.  Such  pestles 
were  often  heavy  and  were  used  in  association  with  h 


1  Two  recent  works,  with  beautiful  illustrations,  many  of 
them  in  the  natural  colors,  are  those  of  W.  K.  Moorehead, 
“The  Stone  Age  in  North  America,”  1910,  and  “Stone  Orna¬ 
ments  of  the  American  Indians,”  1917.  Other  works  by  the 
same  author  are  also  of  value.  Of.  also  papers  by  Beauchamp 
in  the  New  York  State  Bulletins,  Yol.  4,  Nos.  16  and  18. 
Shorter  papers,  with  beautiful  illustrations,  have  been,  pub¬ 
lished  by  Perkins  in  the  American  Anthropologist  from  time  to 
time,  e.g.  in  Yol.  11,  1909;  Vol.  14,  1912. 

2  For  a  study  of  the  stone  axes  and  adzes  of  New  England, 
cf.  Willoughby,  C.  C.,  in  American  Anthropologist,  Vol.  9,  1907, 
pp.  296-306. 

3  In  a  few  rare  cases,  in  which  the  soil  was  especially  favor¬ 
able  to  preservation,  the  wooden  parts  have  been  found  in 
connection  with  the  stone ;  in  other  cases  the  original  condi¬ 
tion  of  the  entire  tool  has  been  learned  from  the  study  of 
analogous  tools  still  in  use  among  primitive  peoples,  or  by  the 
use  among  modern  Indians  of  similar  implements  in  which  the 
stone  part  has  been  replaced  by  pieces  of  iron  or  steel,  obtained 
from  the  whites. 


300 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


springy  sapling,  from  which  they  swung  by  a  leathern 
thong  directly  over  the  mortar,  the  greater  part  of  the 
weight  being  taken  up  by  the  wood. 

The  most  artistic  aboriginal  work  in*  stone  was  lav¬ 
ished  on  tobacco  pipes,  which,  like  all  hand  work,  were 
never  twice  alike,  and  offer  among  them  a  great  range 
of  effort  from  a  simple  bowl  with  a  stem  continuing  in 
the  same  direction,  to  an  elaborate  effigy,  attached  to  a 
stem  placed  at  right  angles  to  the  main  axis  of  the  fig¬ 
ure.  A  pipe  in  the  collection  of  Smith  College  repre¬ 
sents  a  squatting  human  figure,  holding  in  his  arms  a 
relatively  large  bowl,  but  with  all  the  lines  so  softly 
executed  that  both  the  bowl  and  the  lines  of  the  figure 
are  felt  rather  than  too  definitely  expressed — the  work 
of  some  prehistoric  and  forgotten  Rodin.  It  may  here 
be  noted,  that,  as  in  this  case,  whenever  a  human  head 
or  face  is  included  in  the  pipe  design,  it  is  so  placed  as 
to  look  inwards,  towards  the  smoker,  rather  than  out¬ 
wards,  towards  the  smoker’s  associates. 

Then  follow  several  classes  of  stone  objects  designated 
as  “problematic.”  Many  of  these,  like  the  flat  banner- 
stones,  and  the  various  shapes  of  “pendants”  were  prob¬ 
ably  for  the  decoration  of  the  person,  designating  the 
wearer  as  one  distinguished  in  some  way  from  his  fel¬ 
lows.  Many  of  these  are  of  slate  or  of  soapstone,  ma¬ 
terial  easy  to  work  and  not  able  to  stand  a  hard  strain. 
Some  pieces  are  crude  attempts  at  sculpture,  such  as 
the  “bird-stones”  which  plainly  represent  these  crea¬ 
tures,  or  small  human  effigies,  possibly  fetishes  or  idols. 
Similar  carvings  are  found,  executed  in  bone  or  wood — ■ 
naturally  easier  materials  to  work  than  stone,  but  less 
enduring  from  the  standpoint  of  the  archeologist.  Still 


PREHISTORY  OF  THE  TWO  AMERICAS 


301 


other  problematic  objects  occur,  often  well  shaped  and 
executed  with  considerable  care,  that  are  usually  desig¬ 
nated  as  “ plummets’ ’  or  “sinkers,”  and  which  may 
easy  have  been  loom-weights  for  holding  and  keeping 
taut  the  warp  threads  in  a  loom.  Some  of  these,  too, 
may  have  hung  as  pendants  from  necklaces,  and  have 
thus  a  decorative  significance. 

63.  American  Articles  of  Bone ,  Shell,  and  Similar 
Materials. — These,  like  stone  implements  and  pottery, 
occur  abundantly  in  shell  heaps,  and  mounds  of  various 
sorts,  and  in  association  with  graves.  The  bone  articles 
form  the  usual  variety  found  in  Neolithic  culture-sites 
everywhere,  and  consist  largely  of  awls,  bodkins,  scrap¬ 
ers,  and  similar  tools.  By  notching  a  pointed  shaft  one 
or  more  times,  an  effective  fish-spear  is  produced. 

Shells  were  everywhere  in  extensive  use  employed 
either  as  they  are,  or  more  or  less  elaborated.1  The 
unworked  shells  of  many  bivalves,  such  as  clams,  unios, 
and  mussels,  were  employed  singly  as  dishes,  spoons,  and 
ladles,  or  scrapers,  and  a  pair  of  small  ones  used  together 
formed  a  practical  pair  of  tweezers  for  eradicating  a 
straggling  beard. 

Attached  to  a  suitable  handle  a  single  shell  of  a  large 

1  For  an  important  early  paper  on  shell  ornaments,  cf. 
W.  H.  Holmes,  “Art  in  Shell  of  the  Ancient  Americans.”  This 
is  found  in  the  2nd  Ann.  Report  of  the  Bureau  of  Ethnology, 
1880-81.  Beauchamp,  in  the  Bulletins  of  the  New  York  State 
Museum  at  Albany,  has  written  numerous  memoirs  upon  the 
objects  made  by  the  aborigines,  and  there  are  to  be  recom¬ 
mended  in  connection  with  this  especial  subject  his  “Wampum 
and  Shell  Articles  Used  by  New  York  Indians,”  in  March.  1001. 
and  “Horn  and  Bone  Implements  of  the  New  York  Indians,” 
March,  1902.  For  his  papers  on  stone  implements  and  on 
pottery,  cf.  the  references  in  footnotes  elsewhere  in  this 
chapter. 


*02 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


bivalve  formed  a  fairly  useful  hoe  or  shovel,  and  a  pon¬ 
derous  univalve,  like  S trombus,  fitted  upon  the  end  of 
a  stick,  often  served  as  a  war  club,  or  casse-tete.  Handled 
in  the  proper  manner,  a  shell  could  be  cut  or  carved, 
and  in  this  way  was  constructed  a  great  variety  of  orna¬ 
ments,  such  as  pins,  pendants,  or  perforated  disks,  and 
the  great  variety  of  perforated  objects  to  be  strung  in 
series,  i.e.  beads.  It  was  even  possible,  although  not  com¬ 
mon,  to  make  a  simple  shell  axe,  or  celt,  from  a  very 
heavy  shell,  like  a  Strombus,  somewhat  after  the  model 
of  the  much  more  abundant  stone  celts. 

Considerable  decorative  or  pictorial  art  was  frequently 
displayed  in  engraving  upon  smooth  shell  disks,  and 
these  results  sometimes’  bore  a  striking  resemblance  to 
the  art  of  the  Aztecs,  as  appears  upon  their  stone  carv¬ 
ings  or  in  their  famous  parchment  books,  or  codices. 
This  is  especially  true  of  a  number  of  such  disks  from 
the  mounds  of  Missouri  and  Tennessee,  which  suggest 
either  the  development  of  a  local  school  of  art,  or  an 
actual  commerce  with  the  civilizations  further  south  of 
them.1 

Over  the  northeastern  part  of  the  United  States  and 
Canada,  however,  the  main  direction  taken  by  shell  art 
was  in  the  production  of  small  beads  of  two  or  more 
colors,  and  the  weaving  of  them  into  belts  of  various 
patterns,  which  possessed  a  definite  meaning,  true  picto- 
graphs.  Such  beads  are  commonly  termed  wampum, 
from  the  Algonquin  word  wampi  (white)  by  which  they 
designated  the  white  beads  only,  wampumpeag ,  in  dis- 

1  Cf.  illustrations  to  article  by  MacCurdy,  “Shell  Gorgets 
from  Missouri,”  in  American  Anthropologist,  Vol.  15,  1913,  esp. 
figs,  on  pp.  405,  400,  and  407. 


PREHISTORY  OF  THE  TWO  AMERICAS 


303 


tinction  from  the  mowesu,  or  suckarihock,  the  black  ones. 
In  the  east  they  were  slowly  and  laboriously  constructed, 
one  at  a  time,  from  the  shell  of  a  variety  of  mollusks, 
especially  Sycotypus,  and  the  hard  clam,  or  quahog, 
Venus  mercenaria,  the  white  and  purple  portion  of  which 


Fig.  74. — Shell  gorget  with  figure  strongly  suggestive  of  Mexican  art. 
Found  at  St.  Mar’y’s,  Perry  County,  Mo.,  and  now  in  the  collection 
at  Yale  University.  (After  McCurdy.) 


furnished  the  two  colors  commonly  used.  These  beads 
were  used  as  money,  the  purple  being  of  the  greater 
value,  and  possessed  an  intrinsic  worth  because  of  the 
large  amount  of  labor  expended  upon  them.  This  labor 
was,  of  course,  infinitely  greater  than  that  employed  by 


304 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


the  English  in  the  manufacture  of  glass  beads,  and  this 
disparity  gave  an  opportunity  for  deceit  on  the  part  of 
the  whites,  which  the  latter  seem  to  have  used  to  their 
benefit,  especially  in  the  purchase  of  land.1 

More  elaborate  wampum  belts,  wrought  into  compli¬ 
cated  figures,  had  a  more  or  less  definite  meaning,  which 
could  be  read  by  those  familiar  with  the  significance  of 
pictographs,  and  were  thus  used  to  impart  information, 
especially  in  their  councils,  where  they  served  as  impor¬ 
tant  documents,  such  as  intertribal  treaties.  (Fig.  75.) 


Fig.  75.— A  wampum  belt  belonging  to  the  Onondagas.  (After  Holmes.) 


64.  American  Metal  Work. — Objects  of  metal,  of  cop¬ 
per,  of  bronze,  silver,  or  gold,  in  the  form  of  medals, 
brooches,  or  religious  or  fraternal  emblems,  are  fre- 
quently  found  in  late  Indian  graves,  and  indicate  con¬ 
tact  with  European  culture  through  traders  and  mission¬ 
aries.  It  is  absolutely  proved,  however,  that  there  occur 
also  objects  of  copper,  as  also  of  the  more  precious 


1 A  recent  memoir  upon  tlie  use  of  wampum  is  that  of  Frank 
G.  Speck.  “The  Functions  of  Wampum  Among  the  Eastern 
Algonkian,”  in  Mem.  Amer.  Antliropol.  Assn.,  Vol.  G,  No.  1,  1819. 


PREHISTORY  OF  THE  TWO  AMERICAS  303 

metals,  gold  and  silver,  which  were  of  aboriginal  origin, 
without  suggestion  of  European  provenance,  and  often 
probably  antedating  in  age  the  advent  of  the  first 
European  discoverers.  Such  native  objects  are  made, 
of  course,  of  those  metals  which  are  found  in  the  New 
World  in  a  free  state,  like  the  copper  of  Lake  Superior, 
and,  when  found  at  a  distance  from  their  source,  they 
indicate  an  extensive  intertribal  commerce. 

These  aboriginal  metal  objects  are  made,  not  by  mold¬ 
ing  or  casting,  but  by  being  hammered  out  in  a  way  sim¬ 
ilar  to  the  usual  treatment  of  stone  implements.  The 
difference  in  physical  properties  between  a  piece  of  flint 
and  a  piece  of  pure  native  copper  is  such,  that  the  result 
of  such  treatment,  while  it  chips  the  first,  flattens  the 
latter  into  a  thin  plate,  or  draws  it  out  into  a  wire. 
The  aborigines  seem  to  have  been  slow  to  perceive  these 
differences,  and  the  prevailing  endeavor  seems  to  have 
been  to  reproduce  the  shapes  of  the  old  stone  imple¬ 
ments  in  these  newT  kinds  of  stone,  the  native  metals. 
Naturally,  owing  to  their  rarity,  nuggets  of  gold  were 
used  only  as  ornaments  for  the  person,  while  copper  was 
used,  not  only  for  this  latter  purpose,  but  frequently 
also  for  such  tools  and  weapons  as  axes  and  spear  points. 
Such  a  type  of  industry  is  termed  cyprolithic,  or  cop- 
perstone,  and  where  this  industry  is  distinct,  it  may 
be  used  as  a  basis  for  establishing  a  Cyprolithic  Age, 
interpolated  between  the  Neolithic  Age  and  that 
of  Bronze — continued  experiments  with  the  native 
metals  gradually  leading,  through  the  discoveries  of 
casting,  and  later,  smelting,  to  the  use  of  various 
alloys. 

In  Europe  this  was  actually  the  course  taken,  but  in 


306 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


America,  at  the  time  of  the  discovery  by  Europeans,  the 
aboriginal  Americans  were  at  best  no  further  along  than 
well  developed  Neolithic  peoples,  just  entered  upon  a 
Cyprolithic  culture  in  some  places. 

There  is  no  doubt  but  that  the  early  European  traders, 
intently  observant  of  the  objects  which  the  Indians 
valued,  manufactured  in  Europe  and  brought  over  for 
trade  purposes  large  numbers  of  copper  beads  and  other 
trinkets;  but  these  may  always  be  distinguished  from 
the  native  objects  by  a  simple  chemical  analysis,  since 
in  all  European  copper,  which  is  obtained  from  the 
ores,  there  are  always  traces  of  the  lead,  iron,  cobalt, 
nickel,  and  other  metals,  which  occur  there,  while  in 
such  copper  as  the  Indians  could  get  before  the  coming 
of  the  Europeans,  the  metal  was  pure,  without  such 
traces.  Naturally,  such  aboriginal  copper  artifacts  are 
most  plentiful  in  the  vicinity  of  the  natural  supply,  and 
it  thus  happens  that  the  state  of  Wisconsin  surpasses  all 
other  North  American  regions  in  the  abundance  of  such 
objects,  more  than  twenty  thousand  of  which  now  occur 
in  the  museums  of  that  state. 

As  used  for  ornament,  copper  is  most  frequently  met 
with  in  the  form  of  sheets,  disks,  or  tubes,  the  shapes 
which  could  be  the  most  readily  beaten  out  from  native 
pieces  found  free,  and  it  is  in  such  forms  that  the  early 
travelers  and  discoverers  described  and  figured  it. 
Among  the  late  graves,  and  even  among  recent  In¬ 
dians,  are  occasionally  found  breastplates  composed  of 
small  copper  tubes,  woven  together  in  a  definite  pattern 
by  thongs,  and  while  in  recent  years  it  would  be  quite 
possible  to  obtain  such  tubes  from  Europeans,  they 
would  be  most  readily  manufactured  from  small  native 


PREHISTORY  OF  THE  TWO  AMERICAS 


307 


pieces  by  first  beating  them  into  plates,  and  then  roll¬ 
ing  them  up.  The  famous  “ Skeleton  in  Armor,”  found 
at  Fall  River,  Mass.,  in  1841,  immortalized  by  Longfel¬ 
low  as  “a  Viking  bold,”  and  burned  up  a  few  years 
later  by  the  destruction  of  the  Fall  River  town  hall  by 
fire,  was  undoubtedly  equipped  with  a  breastplate  of 
this  sort. 


Fig.  76. — Plate  published  in  1591  by  De  Bry,  representing  American  aborigines 
well  decorated  with  copper  ornaments,  including  earrings,  necklaces,  brace¬ 
lets,  leglets,  and  pendants  hanging  from  the  waist.  As  this  plate  was 
drawn  so  long  ago,  it  is  very  unlikely  that  any  of  the  copper  objects  shown 
here  were  of  European  prevenance.  (From  Moore,  after  De  Bry.) 

In  manufacturing  metallic  objects,  the  aborigines  evi¬ 
dently  knew  the  effect  of  annealing,  that  is,  of  soften¬ 
ing  the  copper  by  heat,  but  there  seems  to  have  been 
little  if  any  suggestion  of  actually  melting  the  metal, 
and  running  it  into  a  mold  when  molten.  This  would 
undoubtedly  have  been  the  next  step  in  development, 


30S 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


judging  from  the  history  of  culture  in  Europe,  but  this 
step  seems  never  to  have  been  taken  until  the  advent  of 
men  from  across  the  ocean  with  their  vastly  higher  civ¬ 
ilization.  At  the  very  beginning  of  this  phase  of  history 
iron  knives  and  axes,  brass  kettles,  swords  and  muskets, 
were  introduced,  and  the  native  cyprolithic  culture  was 
lost  at  once. 

Concerning  the  aboriginal  use  of  gold,  it  will  be 
remembered  that  in  some  parts  it  was  found  in  consid¬ 
erable  abundance  at  the  time  of  the  discovery,  and  it 
was  the  presence  of  aborigines  decorated  with  beads, 
pendants,  rings,  bracelets,  and  other  gold  ornaments, 
which  awakened  the  cupidity  of  the  Spaniards.  In  his 
work  on  the  antiquities  of  Chiriqua  (cited  below,  sub 
American  Pottery)  MacCurdy  describes  many  grotesque 
images  of  gold,  or  of  a  sort  of  aboriginal  gold  plate,  and 
discusses  the  possible  methods  of  manufacture.  It  seems 
very  certain  that,  at  least  in  the  case  of  gold,  the  Ameri¬ 
can  aborigines  were  in  possession  of  the  art  of  melting 
the  metal,  and  casting  it  in  molds,  as  this  was  described 
by  both  Spanish  and  English  writers  of  the  sixteenth 
century.  The  Americans,  then,  at  the  time -of  discovery, 
were  locally,  wherever  they  could  obtain  the  free  metals, 
not  merely  in  the  Cyprolithic  but  well  started  in  the 
first  experiments  leading  to  the  culture  of  the  Bronze 
Age.  This  great  advance,  however,  was  found  only  in 
a  few  places,  although  the  products  of  this  culture  were 
distributed  by  means  of  an  extensive  commerce  to  peo¬ 
ples  who  had  not  yet  gained  the  ability  to  manufacture 
such  things  themselves. 

65.  American  Basketry  and  Weaving. — In  no  way 
has  a  more  grateful  light  been  thrown  upon  the  study 


rREHI STORY  OF  THE  TWO  AMERICAS 


309 


of  prehistory  by  the  aborigines  of  America  than  in 
the  fields  of  basketry  and  weaving,  for  in  these  two  sis¬ 
ter  industries  the  material  products  are  so  perishable, 
that  only  in  the  rarest  eases  are  actual  specimens  of 
them  preserved.  These  people,  when  first  brought  to 
the  notice  of  Europeans,  only  four  hundred  years  ago, 
were  living  in  the  midst  of  a  tj’pical  Neolithic  culture, 
exactly  that  period  which  has  witnessed  in  Europe  the 
origin,  growth,  and  almost  complete  development  of 
these  industries. 

We  have,  in  the  first  place,  a  goodly  number  of  early 
accounts  of  the  industries  of  various  Indian  tribes,  and, 
in  the  second  place,  there  is  the  chance  to  observe  these 
industries  conducted  in  nearly  the  aboriginal  manner, 
for,  even,  in  spite  of  the  introduction  of  modern  ma¬ 
chinery,  with  modern  mills  and  factories,  there  are  still 
plenty  of  Neolithic  fingers  that  are  content  to  accom¬ 
plish  the  work  in  the  old  way. 

In  Chapter  III  the  origin  of  both  pottery  and  bas¬ 
ketry  has  been  traced  to  the  devices  gained  in  primitive 
house-building,  when  first  the  need  of  constructing  a 
firmer  wall  of  twigs  and  branches  caused  man  to  im¬ 
prove  upon  the  simple  heaping  up  of  these  materials, 
and  led  to  a  systematic  intertwining  of  twigs  and  to 
daubing  them  over  with  clay.  The  gradual  acquire¬ 
ment  of  various  types  of  “stitch”  in  weaving  the  twigs 
led  to  the  basket ;  the  building  up  of  a  clay  cover  over 
the  framework  became  the  pot.  Cloth  differs  from  a 
basket  or  a  woven  mat  only  in  the  kind  of  material  used, 
and  the  employment  of  various  vegetable  fibers  and  of 
hair  and  wool  of  animals,  developed  the  art  of  weaving. 
“No  wide  gulf  separates  the  different  varieties  of  tex- 


310 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


tiles  .  .  .  beginning'  with  such  coarse  products  as  brush 
fences  and  fish  weirs  and  ending  with  the  finest  lace  and 
needlework.  ’  ’ 1 

Mason  ascribes  the  origin  of  basketry  and  weaving,  in¬ 
cluding  the  discovery  of  the  various  materials  used,  and 
the  technique  of  dyeing ,  to  women.  He  states:  “With 
a  few  exceptions  the  makers  of  baskets  are  women.  In 
the  division  of  labor  belonging  to  the  lowest  stage  of 
culture  the  industrial  arts  were  fostered  by  women,  the 
military  and  the  aggressive  arts  by  men.”  Again  he 
says :  ‘ 1  The  first  and  most  versatile  shuttles  were 

women’s  fingers.  Machinery  has  added  speed.  But 
there  are  many  niceties  of  technique  to  which  the 
machine  device  cannot  yet  aspire.” 

There  are  two  fundamentally  different  types  of  basket, 
the  woven  and  the  coiled  or  sewed.  In  all  forms  of 
weaving,  whether  basket,  mat,  or  cloth,  there  are  two 
sets  of  elements  running  at  right  angles  and  intertwined 
with  each  other.  Of  these  one,  often  the  stiffer,  and 
always  the  one  taken  as  the  more  fundamental,  is  the 
warp;  the  other  is  the  weft  or  web.  The  warp  is  first  set 
up,  approximately  in  the  position  it  is  finally  to  assume 


1  Otis  Tufton  Mason,  our  best  authority  on  Indian  basketry 
and  kindred  subjects.  His  most  important  work,  appearing  in 
the  Annual  Report  of  the  Smithsonian  Institution  for  1902, 
bears  the  title  “Aboriginal  American  Basketry :  Studies  in  a 
Textile  Art  Without  Machinery,”  and  consists  of  some  375 
pages,  interspersed  with  more  than  200  text-figures  and  fol¬ 
lowed  by  24S  plates.  Both  this  and  the  other  quotations  used 
in  this  section  are  taken  from  this  work.  Other  important 
works  by  the  same  author,  referred  to  elsewhere  in  this  book, 
and  fundamental  to  students  of  the  development  of  human 
culture,  are  “Woman’s  Share  in  Primitive  Culture”  and  “The 
Origin  of  Invention.”  Chapter  III  in  the  first  of  these  two 
books  deals  fundamentally  with  all  forms  of  weaving,  includ¬ 
ing  basketry. 


PREHISTORY  OF  THE  TWO  AMERICAS 


311 


and  the  weft  is  woven  across  the  warp,  one  thread  at  a 
time. 

There  are  three  sub-varieties  of  woven  fabrics  em¬ 
ployed  for  baskets,  (a)  the  plain  weave,  (b)  the  wic¬ 
kerwork,  and  (c)  the  twined  weave.  In  the  first  of  these 
the  warp  and  weft  are  alike,  and  are  simply  placed  alter¬ 
nately  over  and  under  each  other,  giving  an  effect  like 
a  checkerboard.  By  allowing  the  weft  to  run  over  two, 
three  or  four  of  the  warp  threads  a  diagonal  or  diaper 
effect  is  produced,  and  by  introducing  a  dye  to  differen¬ 
tiate  the  two  sets,  or  by  making  the  two  sets  of  splints 
of  different  widths,  or  by  using  different  materials,  still 
other  kinds  of  patterns  will  be  produced.  Wickerwork 
requires  a  rigid  warp,  such  as  would  be  made  by  pliant 
osiers,  and  a  more  supple  weft,  such  as  could  be  intro¬ 
duced  by  rushes  or  thin  splints.  This  is  the  style  of  the 
majority  of  cheap  baskets  in  use  among  the  more  civ¬ 
ilized  peoples ;  it  is  also  the  form  which  makes  the  best 
fish-weirs.  The  third  type,  the  twined  weave,  has  the 
greatest  number  of  truly  artistic  possibilities,  and  that 
and  the  other  main  type,  the  coiled  ware,  have  ever  been 
the  favorites  among  aboriginal  experts.  There  is  a  single 
row  of  strands  forming  the  warp,  but  there  are  two 
wefts  which  are  carried  across  the  warp  together  and 
after  passing  a  strand  of  the  latter  make  a  half  turn 
or  twist,  so  that  their  position  relative  to  the  outer  and 
inner  surfaces  is  reversed.  By  the  use  of  two  colors 
for  the  two  wefts,  and  the  retention  of  one  of  the  wefts 
upon  either  side  desired  for  two  or  more  warp  threads, 
a  pattern,  of  greater  or  less  complexity  in  accordance 
with  the  skill  of  the  artisan,  may  be  produced. 

Coiled  ware  is  not  woven  in  any  sense  of  the  word, 


312 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  TAST 


but  is  laid  in  the  form  of  a  coil,  and  the  last  portion  of 
the  coil  is  continually  sewed  to  the  previous  coil.  By 
employing  these  principles,  and  only  these,  the  aborig¬ 
inal  American  woman  has  devised  an  endless  variety 
of  styles  of  baskets,  and  in  these  her  inherent  love  for 
beauty  has  found  expression. 

“As  you  gaze  upon  the  Indian  basket  maker  at  work, 
herself  frequently  unkempt,  her  garments  the  coarsest, 
her  house  and  surroundings  suggestive  of  anything  but 
beautjq  you  are  amazed.  You  look  about  you,  as  in  a 
cabinet  shop  or  atelier,  for  models,  drawings,  patterns, 
pretty  bits  of  color  effect.  There  are  none.  Her  pat¬ 
terns  are  in  her  soul,  in  her  memory  and  imagination, 
in  the  mountains,  water  courses,  lakes,  and  forests,  and 
in  those  tribal  tales  and  myths  which  dominate  the 
actions  of  every  hour.  She  hears  suggestions  from  an¬ 
other  world.  Her  tools  are  more  disappointing  still, 
for  of  these  there  are  few — a  rude  knife,  a  pointed  bone, 
that  is  all.  Her  modeling  block  is  herself.  Her  plastic 
body  is  the  repository  of  forms.  Over  her  knee  she 
molds  depressions  in  her  ware,  and  her  lap  is  equal  to 
all  emergencies  for  convex  effects.  She  herself  is  the 
Vishnu  of  her  art,  the  creator  of  forms!” 

The  weaving  of  cloth  differs  from  that  of  baskets 
merely  in  the  texture  of  the  materials  used.  In  cloth, 
too,  there  is  usually  a  more  complicated  technique  em¬ 
ployed  in  the  preparation  of  the  material  to  be  woven — 
that  is,  the  art  of  spinning ,  which  is  preliminary  to 
weaving,  and  the  counterpart  of  which  in  basketry  is 
simply  the  gathering  and  the  preparation  of  the  splints 
or  rushes.  Spinning,  which  is  essentially  a  twisting  to¬ 
gether  of  fibers  to  make  the  yarn  or  thread,  requires,  as 
its  first  essential,  some  form  of  spindle  or  rotating  stick. 
In  the  type  universal  in  Europe  this  spindle  is  a  sort  of 


PREHISTORY  OF  THE  TWO  AMERICAS 


313 


top,  and  consists  of  the  spindle  itself,  a  straight  stick, 
and  the  spindle  whorl ,  a  disk  or  wheel  to  supply  the 
weight.  The  more  usual  American  type,  instead  of  a 
spindle  whorl,  is  fitted  with  a  long,  narrow  block,  which 
rotates  around  the  spindle,  exactly  like  a  watchman’s 
rattle,  and  the  thread  is  attached  to  this  instead  of  to 
the  spindle.  A  technique  still  more  primitive  than  either 
form  uses  no  spindle  at  all,  but  twists  the  yarn  between 
the  two  palms,  or  between  the  palm  of  one  hand  and  the 
upper  surface  of  the  thigh,  the  spinner  sitting  on  the 
ground  with  legs  extended. 

When  the  yarn  is  once  prepared  the  process  of  cloth 
making  begins  at  the  same  place  as  does  the  making  of  a 
basket  after  the  material  is  gathered ;  only  the  yarn  is 
so  much  finer  and  more  pliant  than  are  the  basket  splints 
that  more  complicated  devices  may  easily  be  employed 
in  the  weaving.  All  the  warp  threads  for  an  extensive 
piece  of  cloth  may  be  set  up  at  one  time,  and  the  weft 
may  be  run  across  them  at  one  stroke.  Furthermore, 
by  placing  a  stick  called  a  huddle ,  or  heald ,  across  the 
warp,  and  attaching  to  it  certain  of  the  warp  threads 
— every  alternate  one  in  simple  weaving — and  then 
drawing  the  heald  toward  the  weaver,  the  warp  becomes 
separated  into  two  layers,  which  are  so  distinct  that  the 
weft  may  be  put  across  the  entire  line  at  one  motion, 
thus  effecting  in  a  moment  the  same  result  that  in  a 
basket  demands  the  twining  of  the  weft  across  the  warp, 
a  strand  at  a  time.  The  weft  thread,  instead  of  being 
held  at  the  end  in  the  fingers,  is  now  more  conveniently 
wound  about  a  little  short  stick,  the  shuttle ,  and  this  is 
passed  between  the  two  systems  of  warp  threads,  sep¬ 
arated  by  the  heald. 


314 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


This  process  in  its  most  simple  and  elementary  form, 
is  frequently  met  with  in  America,  both  North  and  South, 
and  by  this  the  entire  evolution  of  the  industry  may  be 
traced.  Thus  the  women  of  British  Guiana  weave  their 
queyus,  or  embroidered  aprons,  upon  a  frame  consisting 


Fig.  77. — Ordinary  Navajo  blanket  loom.  The  heald,  to  which  the  warp 
threads  of  the  lower  shed  are  attached,  and  the  batten  or  sword-shaped  stick 
for  pushing  down  the  weft,  are  well  seen.  (After  ’Matthews.) 


PREHISTORY  OF  THE  TWO  AMERICAS  315 

of  two  sticks,  the  one  straight,  the  other  curved,  and 
shaped  like  a  capital  letter  D.  Across  this  loom  the 
warp  threads  are  stretched,  spreading  a  little  at  the 
ends  which  are  attached  along  the  curved  stick,  and 
placed  a  little  nearer  together  along  the  straight  one. 
Better  and  more  complicated  looms  are  met  with  among 
other  aboriginal  peoples,  until  we  find  among  such  skilled 
weavers  as  the  Nava j  os  the  ability  to  manufacture  the 
most  beautiful  and  artistic  rugs  and  blankets.1  Cloth 
of  many  patterns,  often  showing  the  greatest  skill  in 
stitch  and  in  the  introduction  of  patterns,  are  found 
in  greatest  abundance  in  the  graves  of  the  pre-eolum- 
bian  cemeteries  of  Peru,  where  the  dry  air  of  the  high 
altitudes,  and  the  dry,  sandy  soil,  have  combined  to  pre¬ 
serve,  often  with  a  startlingly  modern  appearance,  the 
clothing  of  the  individual  interred,  who  died  before  the 
New  World  had  been  discovered  by  Europeans. 

Aside  from  weaving,  the  variations  and  elaborations 
of  the  textile  industries  embraced  in  the  words  sewing , 
netting ,  knitting,  lace-making ,  knitting,  crocheting,  and 
embroidering,  have  all  been  evolved  by  primitive  women 
of  Neolithic  culture,  and  have  been  preserved,  often  in 
their  earliest  and  most  elementary  form,  among  the 
native  inhabitants  of  two  Americas.2 

1  An  excellent  paper  on  the  Navajo  weavers,  describing  their 
looms  and  the  technique  of  rug  making,  is  that  by  Washington 
Matthews,  found  in  the  Ann.  Rep.,  Bureau  Ethnol.,  Vol.  3, 
1881-82. 

2  A  fundamental  analysis  of  the  arts  of  weaving,  including 
the  allied  industries,  will  be  found  in  the  two  books  by  Otis 
Tufton  Mason,  already  cited,  “Woman’s  Share  in  Primitive 
Culture”  (Appleton,  1899),  and  “The  Origin  of  Invention” 
(Scribner,  1915).  The  author’s  dedication  of  the  former  “to 
all  good  women,  living  or  dead,  who  with  their  brains,  or  by 
their  toil,  have  aided  the  progress  of  the  world,”  is  significant. 


316 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


66.  American  Pottery. — As  elsewhere  among  Neo¬ 
lithic  people,  the  potter’s  art  was  highly  developed 
among  the  American  aborigines,  and  owing  to  the  almost 
indestructible  nature  of  the  material,  the  broken  re¬ 
mains  of  objects  of  baked  clay,  shards,  are  an  almost 
constant  accompaniment  of  excavation.1 

Pottery  has  developed  everywhere  in  response  to  one 
of  the  first  needs  of  humanity,  at  least  as  soon  as  men 
possess  settled  houses  and  families,  namely  that  of  the 
transportation  of  water.  In  a  few  favored  localities, 
such  as  a  cave  with  dripping  water,  or  an  encampment 
upon  the  side  of  a  river  or  lake,  or  near  a  living  spring, 
this  want  is  not  especially  felt,  but  in  a  dry  country 
where  water  sources  are  not  ever  at  hand,  each  indi¬ 
vidual,  if  he  has  no  means  of  transporting  water,  must 
make  daily  pilgrimages  of  some  distance  to  slake  his 
thirst,  and  the  habitual  use  of  water  for  any  other  pur¬ 
pose  is  not  to  be  thought  of.  Water  in  very  limited 
quantities  may  be  transported  in  hollow  shells  and  espe¬ 
cially  in  gourds;  wherever  the  bamboo  abounds  cylin- 


1  Cf.  especially  the  article  by  Cushing,  upon  the  pottery  of 
the  Zuni  Pueblos,  in  Fourth  Ann.  Rep.,  Bureau  of  Ethnol., 
1884-85.  For  illustrations  of  pottery,  cf.  various  articles  by 
Holmes,  Fewkes,  and  others  scattered  through  the  volumes  of 
the  above  series,  for  example.  Vols.  3,  4,  6,  13,  17,  20,  22, 
For  a  sktch  of  the  development  of  the  pot  from  the  basket,  cf. 
O.  T.  Mason,  “Woman’s  Share  in  Primitive  Culture.” 

As  one  out  of  a  large  bibliography  of  works  on  American 
aboriginal  pottery,  may  be  mentioned  a  recent  work  by 
MacCurdy,  “A  Study  of  Chiriquian  Antiquities,”  a  quarto 
memoir  of  the  Connecticut  Academy  of  Arts  and  Sciences,  with 
250  pages  of  text,  including  380  text-figures,  and  with  49  plates, 
many  of  them  colored.  It  contains  several  pages  of  bibliog¬ 
raphy.  Mem.  Conn.  Acad.  Arts  and  Sci.,  1911. 

For  plates  of  Arizona  pottery,  cf.  Hough  in  Annual  Report  of 
the  Smithsonian  Institution,  1901  (published  1913).  This 
contains  101  beautiful  plates. 


PREHISTORY  OF  THE  TWO  AMERICAS  317 

drical  buckets  may  be  made  of  its  stems,  but  such  means 
alone  are  insufficient  for  the  needs  of  humanity  in  gen¬ 
eral,  and  the  inventive  faculty  is  stimulated  to  pro¬ 
vide  receptacles  more  universally  accessible. 

To  supply  these  needs  there  have  been  at  least  two 
lines  of  development ;  first,  the  employment  of  the  skins 
of  animals,  leading  to  the  skin  water  bottle  in  use  in 
many  parts  of  the  world,  and  second,  the  attempt  to 
make  a  basket  tight  enough  for  the  purpose.  The  first 
of  these  lines  is  a  simple  one,  and  may  easily  have 
been  developed  through  the  use  of  a  raw  skin  to  line  a 
cooking  hole,  that  is,  a  small  depression  in  the  ground, 
filled  with  water,  which  is  brought  to  a  boil  by  heating 
small  stones  in  a  neighboring  fire  and  dropping  them  in 
at  frequent  intervals.  The  other  line  is  very  complicated 
in  its  development,  but  has  led  to  vastly  better  and  more 
serviceable  results.  The  art  of  basketry  is  one  of  the 
most  primitive  of  industries,  and  with  the  wealth  and 
variety  of  the  materials  furnished,  and  the  ease  of 
manipulation,  the  artificer,  generally  a  woman,  requiring 
nothing  but  her  fingers  for  the  construction,  easily  at¬ 
tains  a  high  degree  of  skill.  Many  primitive  peoples  of 
the  present  clay  construct  baskets  that  are  practically 
water-tight,  and  there  is  no  reason  to  believe  that  this 
art  could  not  have  been  attained  in  early  times.  However, 
an  easier  and  perfectly  natural  step  to  take  to  obtain 
the  same  result  with  less  skill  or  effort,  would  be  to 
employ  pitch,  clay,  or  other  plastic  material,  to  fill 
the  interstices  and  render  an  ordinary  basket  water¬ 
tight. 

In  the  life  of  a  modern  city  dweller  clay  is  a  sub¬ 
stance  rarely  met  with,  but  it  continually  takes  the 


31S 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


attention  of  a  primitive  man  living  in  an  untamed 
natural  environment.  To  such  a  man  the  daubing  a 
basket,  either  inside  or  out,  with  clay,  in  an  attempt 


Pig.  78. — Prehistoric  American  shards,  with  the  impressions  of  the  textiles  upon 
which  they  were  origina’ly  built;  also  casts  from  these  made  in  plaster, 
and  showing  the  positives  of  the  textiles  themselves.  (After  Holmes.) 


at  making  a  serviceable  water  receptacle,  is  the  simplest 
of  acts,  and  one  undoubtedly  discovered  independently 
thousands  of  times,  and  employed  by  every  primitive 
family  with  whom  the  need  arises.  When,  however,  the 


PREHISTORY  OF  THE  TWO  AMERICAS 


319 


clay  dries,  or  perhaps  becomes  baked  by  being  acciden¬ 
tally  left  in  or  about  the  fire,  it  parts  company  from 
the  basket,  and  forms  an  object  which,  used  with  great 
care,  may  be  employed  as  a  utensil  by  itself,  a  true  piece 
of  pottery. 

The  birth  of  pottery  is  thus  inseparable  from  basketry, 
and  there  follows  a  long  period  of  development,  during 
which  every  pot  is  formed  either  upon  or  within  a 
basket.  This  has  two  fundamental  results;  first,  primi¬ 
tive  pots  take  the  forms  originally  devised  for  baskets, 
and  retain  certain  limitations  imposed  by  the  textile 
material,  and  second,  they  possess  an  external  surface, 
covered  with  the  impression  of  the  basket  stitch.  Shards 
of  such  early  pottery,  impressed  by  the  stamp  of  the 
basket  which  served  as  a  form  or  mold,  are  frequently 
met  with  in  excavation ;  and  by  using  them  in  turn  as 
molds,  and  covering  the  surface  with  plaster  of  Paris, 
the  details  of  numerous  kinds  of  prehistoric  basketry 
have  been  recovered.1 

When,  now,  this  stage  is  reached,  it  is  not  long  before 
the  art  is  acquired  of  forming  the  clay  utensil  directly, 
without  the  use  of  the  previously  constructed  basket,  and 
these  endeavors  take  two  distinct  forms,  coiled  ware 
and  molded  ware.  Coiled  ware  copies  in  clay,  so  far  as 
possible,  the  technique  employed  in  making  a  coiled  bas¬ 
ket  ;  it  is  a  basket  of  this  type  made  of  a  different  mate¬ 
rial.  To  make  such  a  utensil  an  actual  clay  rope  is 
first  made  by  rolling  the  clay  in  the  flat  hand ;  this  is 
then  used  to  make  any  shape  desired,  and  within  the 
possibilities  of  a  coil.  The  separate  coils  arc  then  tightly 

1W.  H.  Holmes,  in  Second  Ann.  Rep.,  Bureau  of  Ethnol, 
1880-81. 


320 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


fused  together  by  making  “stitches”  at  intervals — 
places  where  the  clay  of  two  adjacent  coils  is  pinched 
together — and  the  dish  is  finished. 

Molded  ware  gets  farther  away  from  the  idea  of  the 
basket,  and  the  technique  of  making  it  is  a  new  one. 


Fig.  79. — Iroquoian  pottery  vessels.  These  have  got  somewhat  away  from  the 
basket,  and  have  been  moulded  directly  with  the  hands,  but  the  symmetry  is 
that  of  the  eye,  and  there  is  no  suspicion  of  a  potter’s  wheel.  (After  C. 
Parker.) 


PREHISTORY  OF  THE  TWO  AMERICAS 


321 


Here  a  piece  of  clay  sufficient  to  make  an  entire  pot  is 
taken,  and  molded  into  shape  by  thumb  and  fingers. 
There  are  here  no  clay  rope  and  no  stitches,  but  the 
shape  becomes  gradually  perfected  under  the  hands  of 
the  potter,  a  shapeless  mass  eventually  assuming  the 
shape  and  proportions  desired.  Naturally  such  uten¬ 
sils  are  made  round,  like  baskets,  an  idea  from  which 
men  are  seemingly  loth  to  depart,  but  there  is  no  rea¬ 
son  in  the  technique  for  making  them  so,  and  square 
dishes  occasionally  appear,  and  even  eccentric  forms  in 
the  shape  of  birds  or  other  animals  are  quite  possible. 
In  molded  ware  of  the  round  form,  varying  between 
the  form  of  a  tall  cylinder  and  a  flat  dish,  it  is  impos¬ 
sible  to  center  them  exactly  and  hand-made  pots  stand 
more  or  less  lopsided,  as  one  side  is  sure  to  overbalance 
the  rest.  This  is  eventually  obviated  by  a  great  inven¬ 
tion,  the  potter’s  wheel  which  is  a  solid  wheel  horizon¬ 
tally  placed  and  made  to  revolve  rapidly  by  some  sim¬ 
ple  mechanism,  perhaps  a  treadle.  When  a  lump  of 
clay  is  placed  in  the  middle  of  this  wheel,  and  touched 
by  a  stick  or  other  firm  object  when  revolving,  every 
contact  surface  becomes  a  part  of  a  circle,  and  the  entire 
lump  rises  or  falls,  spreads  or  flattens,  always  in  exact 
response  to  what  is  done  to  it  along  the  side.  This 
exact  shaping  takes  place  rapidly,  and  the  result  is  per¬ 
fectly  centered — a  high  achievement,  and  one  which 
necessarily  takes  the  place  of  all  cruder  methods  where- 
ever  it  can  be  installed.  So  complex  a  mechanism  is 
above  the  level  of  Neolithic  culture,  and  no  parts  of 
such  a  machine  are  ever  found  in  Neolithic  remains,  nor 
do  any  Neolithic  shards  show  the  mathematical  accu¬ 
racy  of  wheel-made  pottery.  This  sort  the  Indians 


322 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


never  developed  and  a  wheel-made  shard  means  a  post- 
Columbian  deposit. 

But  it  is  not  enough  for  either  the  prehistoric  or  the 
modern  potter  simply  to  make  a  utensil  of  the  proper 
shape :  the  aesthetic  feeling  demands  that  it  he  decorated. 
The  beginning  of  this  is  seen  in  the  impress  of  the  bas¬ 
ket  weave  upon  the  outer  surface.  This  is  at  first  looked 
upon  as  a  natural  and  necessary  surface  effect,  and  is 
missed  when  pots  are  made  direct.  All  sorts  of  de¬ 
vices,  therefore,  are  employed  for  producing  this  effect 
artificially,  and  this  feeling  forms  one  of  the  motives, 
perhaps  the  main  one,  for  the  production  of  incised 
ware,  in  which  a  pattern  is  produced  upon  the  soft  clay 
by  incising  it  with  some  object,  a  stick  or  sharp  bone, 
or  even  the  finger  nail.  Further  decorative  effects  are 
produced  by  the  use  of  various  mineral  colors,  at  first 
rubbed  into  the  incised  lines,  or  used  to  cover  the  inter¬ 
mediate  fields,  but  later  employed  alone  upon  a  smooth 
surface.  In  all  this  decoration,  beginning  with  the  first 
incised  ware,  there  has  been  a  definite  meaning,  varying 
from  the  attempt  to  reproduce  a  mechanical  effect  to  an 
elaborate  symbolism  based  upon  a  complicated  mythol¬ 
ogy  and  phlosophy.  The  pottery  of  a  primitive  people 
becomes  its  library,  and  the  first  crude  inscriptions 
and  early  records  of  a  cultured  race,  aside  from  the 
more  formal  ones  engraved  upon  stone,  are  inscribed 
upon  clay.1 

1  It  is  the  further  development  of  this  idea  that  is  seen  in 
the  real  libraries  of  clay  tablets,  with  their  cuneiform  inscrip¬ 
tions,  found  among  the  ruins  of  ancient  Assyrian  civilization. 
This  method  of  writing  undoubtedly  first  developed  upon 
the  sides  of  pots  and  vases,  which,  when  the  use  of  writing 
became  more  common,  were  replaced  by  cylinders  and  flattened 
tablets  made  for  the  purpose. 


PREHISTORY  OF  THE  TWO  AMERICAS  323 

Thus  for  a  variety  of  reasons — the  abundance  and  the 
indestructibility  of  shards,  the  records  of  industrial 
development  which  they  bear,  the  indications  occasionally 
recorded  of  primitive  beliefs  and  ideas — the  field  offered 
by  the  study  of  pottery  is  of  first  importance,  especially, 
in  studying  that  fringe  of  the  subject  lying  between 
prehistory  and  history.  Shards,  moreover,  at  once  so 
permanent  and  so  characteristic,  like  the  guide  fossils 
of  the  paleontologist  serve  to  date  a  culture  deposit, 
often  with  much  accuracy  and  are  thus  valuable,  not 
only  in  themselves,  but  in  the  light  they  throw  upon 
other  associated  objects. 

This  short  sketch  of  the  development  of  pottery  is 
based  upon  the  observations  of  American  ethnologists 
made  upon  the  aborigines  in  this  continent.  In  no  part 
of  the  world  has  the  material  been  so  favorable  for  this 
study  as  here,  since  practically  every  step  in  this  indus¬ 
try  may  be  found  in  operation  among  the  living,  while 
the  history  of  the  past  among  the  same  people  may  be 
traced  by  the  shards.  Upon  the  arid  plains  of  the 
Southwest  of  the  United  States,  where  water  sources 
are  few  and  scattered  the  importance  of  conveying  and 
storing  water  becomes  paramount,  and  largely  on  ac¬ 
count  of  this,  doubtless,  the  various  arts  connected  with 
pottery  have  attained  an  especially  high  development. 
Here  and  elsewhere  upon  the  western  continent,  anthro¬ 
pologists  have  the  great  advantage  of  studying  the  living 
artificers,  watching  the  manufacture  of  the  utensils,  and 
learning  from  the  lips  of  the  people  themselves  the  mean¬ 
ing  and  the  symbolism  of  the  details  of  the  work  and 
the  steps  of  the  process.  Judging  from  the  remains,  the 
pottery  of  the  European  Neolithic  and  Bronze  Ages  has 


324 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


evidently  gone  through  a  similar  development,  and  these 
remains  receive  an  interpretation  by  comparison  with 
the  practically  identical  productions  of  America  of  which 
the  significance  is  known.  When  the  American  conti¬ 
nent  was  discovered  by  Europeans  it  was  entirely  Neo¬ 
lithic,  and  possessed  everywhere  Neolithic  stone  imple¬ 
ments,  pottery,  and  textiles.  In  regions  furnished  with 
native  copper  the  aborigines  fabricated  ornaments  and 
numbers  of  simple  tools  and  weapons  of  that  metal, 
manufacturing  them,  however,  by  hammering  them  out 
with  a  stone  hammer  and  without  casting  them  in  molds. 
They  thus  showed  in  favored  localities  the  beginnings  of 
a  Cyprolithic,  or  copper-stone,  culture. 

67.  Classification  of  American  Aboriginal  Objects. — 
As  would  be  expected,  the  task  of  classifying  the  pot¬ 
tery,  stone  implements,  and  other  objects  of  aboriginal 
manufacture  is  an  extremely  difficut  one.  The  objects  in 
question  come,  not  from  large  and  organized  factories, 
but  from  the  hands  of  individual  artisans,  who  are 
bound  by  few  conventions  and  in  the  shaping  of  each 
piece  are  free  to  vary  the  work  as  they  wish,  following 
every  mood  or  whim,  or  the  exigencies  of  the  material. 
The  systems  in  use  by  the  various  collectors  and  by  the 
different  museums  have  likewise  been  widely  different. 

The  first  subdivision,  on  which  all  agree,  rests  upon 
the  material  of  which  the  artifacts  are  constructed,  and 
includes  (1)  stone ,  (2)  bone  and  horn,  (3)  shell,  and 
(4)  copper ;  (gold  and  silver  are  very  rare,  but  may  be 
met  with).  Pottery  in  the  broad  sense,  including  not 
only  pots  and  vases,  but  pipes  and  figurines,  might  make 
another  group.  Beyond  this  the  classification  might  be 
based  upon  use,  and  include  such  classes  as  arrow  and 


PREHISTORY  OF  THE  TWO  AMERICAS 


325 


spear  points,  axes,  scrapers,  pendants,  fish  spears,  and 
so  on ;  or  else,  especially  as  the  exact  use  of  many  of 
the  artifacts  is  unknown,  upon  shape  alone,  without 
reference  to  use. 

Some  of  the  possibilities  of  classification  are  illustrated 
by  the  accompanying  series  of  sketches,  prepared  some 
years  ago  by  a  committee  from  the  American  Anthro¬ 
pological  Association,  illustrative  of  a  scheme  of  classi¬ 
fication  proposed,  but  not  generally  adopted.1  The 
committee,  on  stating  the  principles  on  which  its  classi¬ 
fication  was  based  said:  “The  classifications  here  offered 
and  definitions  here  proposed  in  some  detail  are  based 
so  far  as  possible  on  form  alone.  ...  It  has  been  the 
particular  aim  of  the  Committee  to  avoid  or  to  get  rid 
of  those  classes  and  names  that  are  based  on  uses 
assumed  but  not  universally  proven  for  certain  speci¬ 
mens.”  (The  italics  are  our  own.)  The  committee 
further  quoted  a  remark  of  W.  II.  Holmes,  that  “the 
difficulty  in  classification  and  in  nomenclature  comes 
largely  from  our  lack  of  complete  and  detailed  knowl¬ 
edge;  with  increased  knowledge  will  come  decreased 
difficulty.  ’  ’ 

The  class  of  stone  implements  is  naturally  and  ob¬ 
viously  divided  into  those  with  chipped,  and  those  with 
smooth  surface ;  and  the  subdivisions  of  the  former,  as 
indicative  of  the  possibilities,  are  as  follows,  illustrated 
by  Fig.  80 : 


1  This  committee  consisted  of  the  following :  Dr.  Charles 
Peabody,  Chairman:  John  H.  Wright,  J.  D.  McGnire  F.  W. 
Hodge  and  Warren  Iv.  Morehead.  The  sketches  shown  here 
were  selected  as  types  from  the  collections  at  the  Peabody 
Museum  of  Archeology  at  Cambridge,  and  permission  to  use 
the  same  was  kindly  given  by  Mr.  Peabody. 


o 


Fig.  80. — Outline  drawings  of  chipped  stone  from  the  Peabody  Museum,  Cam¬ 
bridge,  Mass.,  and  selected  as  types  of  form,  accompanying  the  classification 
given  in  the  text.  The  numbers  are  those  of  the  Peabody  Museum. 

Length  cm. 


1. 

No. 

64398 

4 

Miss. 

Base  straight. 

2. 

No. 

64397 

3.75 

Miss. 

Pointed  at  both  ends. 

3. 

No. 

64405 

8.5 

Miss. 

Oblong. 

4. 

No. 

61796 

6.0  • 

Miss. 

Stem  expanding;  barbed. 

5. 

No. 

61796 

6.0 

Miss. 

Stem  expanding,  not  barbed. 

6. 

No. 

61796 

7.0 

Miss. 

Stem  nearly  straight,  -slightly  barbed. 

7. 

No. 

61869 

5.0 

Miss. 

Stem  contracting,  barbed. 

8. 

No. 

64334 

4.0 

Miss. 

Stem  contracting,  not  barbed. 

9. 

No. 

1217 

5.0 

Cal. 

With  two  scraping  edges. 

10. 

No. 

61874 

4.0 

Miss. 

With  three  scraping  edges. 

11. 

No. 

64410 

5.5 

Miss. 

Rectangular  in  cross  section. 

12. 

No. 

48816 

3.75 

Miss. 

Like  a  projectile  point,  but  with  the  point' become 

a  curve. 

(After  Charles  Peabody  and  the  Committee.) 


PREHISTORY  OF  THE  TWO  AMERICAS 


327 


I. 


II. 


III. 


IV. 


Classification  of  Articles  of  Chipped  Stone. 

Knives,  or  projectile  points. 

Larger — 5  cm.  or  more  in  length. 

Smaller — less  than  5  cm.  in  length. 

1.  Without  stem. 

A.  Flakes,  long  and  thin. 

B.  Pointed. 


rBase  convex. 

Base  straight  (Fig.  SO,  1). 


(a)  at  one  end 

Base  concave 

(b)  at  both  ends  (cf.  Fig.  SO,  2) 
Oblong  (cf.  Fig.  80,  3). 

Circular. 

With  stem. 

A.  Stem  expanding  from  base. 


C. 

D. 


(a)  Base  concave 

(b)  Base  straight 

(c)  Base  convex 


(Fp 


barbed 
or 

not  barbed 


B.  Stem  with  sides  parallel. 


(a)  Base  concave 
(c)  Base  convex 

(b)  Base  straight 


f  barbed 
j  or 

(  not  barbed. 


.  SO, 
(Fig 
(Fig.  SO, 


C.  Stem  contracting  from  base. 


(a)  Base  concave 
(c)  Base  convex 

(b)  Base  straight  __ 

D.  Shouldered  implements. 

(a)  Chipped  on  one  side. 

(b)  Chipped  on  both  sides. 


barbed 
or 

not  barbed 


4) . 

80). 

5) . 


(Fig.  88, 
(Fig. 


7). 

SS, 


8). 


Scrapers. 

Types : 

1.  With  one  scraping  edge. 

2.  With  two  scraping  edges  (Fig.  SO,  10). 

3.  With  three  or  all  scraping  edges  (Fig.  SO,  10). 


Implements  for  Perforating  or  Engraving. 

Types  : 

1.  Round  or  rectanagular  in  cross  section  (Fig. 

SO,  11). 

2.  With  major  and  minor  axes  in  cross  section. 

3.  Varying. 


Implements  for  Percussion. 

Types : 

1.  Shaped  like  a  projectile  point  with  the  point  be' 

come  a  curve  (Fig.  80,  12). 

2.  Hammer-stones  chipped  before  using. 

(Note:  1.  Forms  may  possess  regular  or  inten¬ 
tional  serration. 

2.  Forms  may  be  combined  or  eccentric.) 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


32S 

The  classification  of  pottery,  as  treated  by  this  com¬ 
mittee,1  was  based,  (1)  as  to  decoration ;  whether  plain, 
stamped ,  incised,  or  painted;  (2)  as  to  manufacture; 
whether  sun-dried,  burnt,  hand-molded,  or  coiled ;  (3) 
as  to  material;  clay  sand,  shell,  and  other  combinations, 
and  (4)  as  to  form.  Certain  definitions  applicable  to 
pots  and  vases  of  various  form  were  found  advisable, 
as  follows: 

A  simple  vessel  must  consist  of  a  body,  and  may  have  a  rim, 
neck,  foot  or  handle,  or  any  combination  of  these. 

1.  Body. 

A  formation  capable  of  holding  within  itself  a  liquid  or 
solid  substance. 

2.  Rim. 

(a)  A  constituent  part  of  the  vessel  forming  the  termina¬ 
tion  of  the  body. 

(b)  A  constituent  part  of  the  vessel  recognizable  by  a 
change  in  thickness  of  the  substance  in  the  terminal  sec¬ 
tions. 

3.  Neck. 

A  constituent  part  of  the  vessel  recognizable  by  a  more 
or  less  sudden  decrease  in  the  rate  of  increase  or  decrease 
of  the  diameter. 

4.  Foot. 

A  non-constituent  part  of  the  vessel  recognizable  by  a 
diameter  in  cross  section,  whose  rate  of  change  is  sud¬ 
denly  varied  by  the  increased  diameter  of  the  body. 

5.  Handle. 

A  non-constituent  part  of  the  vessel  consisting  of  some 
outside  attachment. 

Body.  It  is  suggested  that  students,  in  tomparing  the  forms 
of  the  cross  sections  of  vessels,  pay  particular  attention  to  the 
proportion  of  the  diameter  to  the  height  and  the  rate  of  change 
of  this  proportion,  and  refer  to  the  following  definitions  of  the 
two  dimensions.  Height :  Perpendicular  distance  from  the  base 
to  the  most  distant  part  of  the  rim.  Diameter'.  The  length 
from  any  point  on  the  sides  to  any  other  point  distant  180° 
measured  on  a  line  perpendicular  to  the  height.  Base :  The 
point  of  contact  on  a  plane  of  contact  of  the  body  with  a  hori¬ 
zontal  surface. 


1  Proposed  l  y  Mr.  J.  D.  McGuire. 


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(After  Charles  Peabody  and  the  Committee.) 


330 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


Tlie  following  analysis  of  form  was  presented : 

Body:  These  are  so  various,  depending  on  relative  height 
and  diameter  of  the  cross-section,  that  an  analysis  is  too  cum¬ 
bersome  to  be  of  service  for  general  reference. 

N  eck  : 

1.  With  increasing  diameter  (Fig.  81,  2). 

2.  With  constant  diameter  (Fig.  81.  3). 

3.  With  decreasing  diameter  (Fig.  81,  4). 

4.  Combinations. 

Lip :  A  constituent  part  of  the  neck  of  body  recognizable 
by  a  suddenly  increasing  diameter  of  neck  or  body  that  con¬ 
tinues  increasing  to  the  rim.  (Fig.  81,  5.) 

Foot: 

1.  Continuous — 

(a)  With  increasing  diameter. 

(b)  With  constant  diameter. 

(c)  With  decreasing  diameter  (Fig.  81,  1). 

2.  Not  continuous — 

Differentiated  by — 

(a)  Number. 

(b)  Angle  with  the  horizontal.  \ 

(1)  Expanding  upward. 

(2)  Perpendicular  to  horizontal. 

(3)  Contracting  upward  (Fig.  81,  6). 

Handles — Types : 

Differentiated  by — 

1.  Number. 

2.  Position  on  the  vase. 

(A)  Body  (Fig.  81,  7). 

(B)  Neck. 

(C)  Foot  (Fig.  81,  8). 

(D)  Combinations. 

3.  Form. 

(A)  Continuous  with  body  or  neck. 

(B)  Not  continuous  with  body  or  neck. 

(a)  With  constant  direction. 

(b)  With  varying  direction. 

(c)  With  reentry  upon  vessel. 

It  is  not  intended  in  these  pages  to  advocate  this  par¬ 
ticular  method  of  classifying  aboriginal  objects,  nor  has 
the  scheme  presented  above  been  definitely  adopted. 
There  is  only  the  intention  to  show  that  such  objects, 
although  representing  the  individual  style  of  many  arti¬ 
ficers,  untrammeled  for  the  most  part  by  canons  of  taste, 


PREHISTORY  OF  THE  TWO  AMERICAS 


331 


are  yet  capable  of  scientific  classification,  expressing 
slight  differences  of  form  and  other  characters.  Should 
these  lines  fall  under  the  eye  of  an  amateur  collector,  it 
will  surely  be  of  value  to  say  that  of  all  characters  or 
attributes  of  on  aboriginal  object,  be  it  flint  point  or 
clay  shard,  the  exact  locality  where  the  piece  was  found, 
even  often  to  the  details  of  an  individual  field,  is  of  the 
utmost  importance — much  more  than  the  details  of  shape 
or  the  suppositions  concerning  the  probable  use,  for 
these  latter  may  be  deduced  at  any  time  from  the  piece 
itself,  while  the  details  concerning  locality,  once  lost  or 
disassociated  from  the  object,  can  never  be  put  beyond 
doubt.  While  all  are  urged  to  collect  aboriginal  objects, 
classifying  or  arranging  them  in  the  way  that  most 
appeals  to  their  individual  tastes,  it  is  the  first  duty  for 
the  collector  to  record  the  exact  locality  of  each  piece. 
The  identity  of  a  given  piece  may  be  fairly  well  secured 
by  pasting,  or  better,  painting,  a  number  or  letter  upon 
it;  it  is  also  an  excellent  idea  to  keep  a  notebook,  upon 
the  pages  of  which  each  piece  is  recorded  in  outline, 
made  by  laying  the  piece  directly  upon  the  page,  and 
tracing  the  outlines  around  it,  much  in  the  way  of  chil¬ 
dren  who  learn  to  draw  their  hands  in  the  same  man¬ 
ner.  Upon  each  outline  may  be  written  the  details  of 
the  locality,  as  well  as  the  number  it  bears  in  the  collec¬ 
tion,  and,  thus  labeled  and  described,  even  a  small  col¬ 
lection  will  be  of  ten  times  the  value  of  one  many  times  as 
large,  with  the  locality  labels  disarranged  or  lost.  It 
may  even  be  said  that  the  former  will  be  of  professional 
value,  and  forms  a  definite  record  of  the  past,  while 
the  value  of  the  latter  is  practically  nothing. 

68.  American  Architecture ;  Single  Dwellings  and 


MAN'S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


Community  Houses. — At  the  time  of  the  discovery,  and 
undoubtedly  for  a  long  time  previous,  the  civilization 
of  the  American  aborigines  was  that  characteristic  of 
Neolithic  peoples  everywhere ;  in  some  localities  nomad 
hunters,  or  primitive  agriculturists,  and  in  others  larger 
or  smaller  fixed  communities.  Of  the  first  type,  wan¬ 
dering  from  place  to  place,  in  pursuit  of  game,  the  usual 
form  of  dwelling  was  the  tent,  formed  of  skins,  and  easily 
transportable ;  while  agriculture,  even  the  care  of  a 
small  field  of  maize,  anchored  the  possessor  to  a  definite 
spot,  and  developed  various  types  of  a  more  or  less  per¬ 
manent  house. 

It  is  on  the  western  plains  of  the  United  States  that 
the  tepee,  an  excellent  type  of  the  former,  especially 
developed,  and,  being  light  and  easily  put  up,  this  work 
was  largely  developed  by  the  women.  A  tepee,  or,  more 
accurately,  tipi,  is  a  conical  tent,  made,  as  long  as  it  was 
possible,  of  the  dressed  skins  of  buffaloes  (bisons). 

“The  separate  skins  are  cut  and  fitted  on  the  ground 
into  a  single  piece  resembling  the  cover  of  an  umbrella. 
The  seams  are  all  sewed  tightly  from  top  to  bottom 
except  one,  which  is  fastened  by  a  lacing  from  the  top 
to  within  four  or  five  feet  from  the  ground.  The  open¬ 
ing  thus  left  is  the  doorway,  the  door  itself  being  a  buf¬ 
falo  robe  or  piece  of  cloth,  fastened  above  and  left  to 
hang  loose,  except  in  bad  weather,  when  it  can  be  tightly 
stretched  by  thongs,  attached  to  the  lower  corners.  The 
ground  being  selected,  the  tepee  is  spread  out  upon  it. 
Three  poles  are  lightly  tied  together  near  the  smaller 
ends,  and  thrust  under  the  covering,  passed  through  the 
orifice  at  the  top,  raised  upright,  and  the  lower  end 
spread  out  as  far  as  possible.  A  rope  or  rawhide  thong 
attached  to  the  top  of  the  covering  is  then  thrown  over 
the.  crossing  of  the  poles.  One  woman  pulls  on  the  end  of 


PREHISTORY  OF  THE  TWO  AMERICAS 


333 


this  rope,  while  another  adjusts  the  tripod  of  poles  until 
the  covering  is  stretched  vertically  and  laterally.  The 
other  poles  are  then  carried  in  one  by  one ;  the  small  end, 
thrust  through  the  top  opening,  is  laid  against  the  point 
of  crossing  of  the  first  three,  the  large  end  being  carried 
out  as  far  as  possible.  When  all  the  poles  are  in,  they 
are  arranged  equidistant,  in  a  circle,  stretching  the  cov¬ 
ering  as  tightly  as  possible,  a  few  wooden  pins  are  driven 
into  the  ground  through  slits  in  the  bottom  of  the  cov¬ 
ering  on  the  outside,  and  the  work  is  done.  .  .  .  Two 
quick  working  women  can  put  up  a  tepee  in  five  min¬ 
utes,  and  take  it  down  in  three.  To  prevent  the  wind 
from  blowing  directly  down  the  top,  a  sort  of  winged  cap 
is  provided,  managed  from  below  with  strings,  or  a  deer¬ 
skin  fastened  between  two  poles  is  set  up  on  the  wind¬ 
ward  side  of  the  opening.  It  is  shifted  with  the  wind.1 

In  southern  New  England  a  similar  type  of  hut  was 
made  of  a  framework  of  light  wood,  clothed  both  within 
and  without  with  woven  mats,  the  work  of  the  women. 
They  are  thus  described  by  the  Plymouth  Pilgrims,  who 
saw  them  for  the  first  time  on  Cape  Cod : 

“The  houses  were  made  with  long  sapling  trees,  bended 
and  both  ends  stuck  into  the  ground ;  they  were  made 
round,  like  unto  an  Arbour,  ani  covered  downe  to  the 
ground  with  thick  and  well  wrought  matts,  and  the  doore 
was  not  over  a  yard  high,  made  of  a  mat  to  open ;  the 
chimney  was  a  wide  open  hole  at  the  top,  for  which  they 
had  a  mat  to  cover  it  close  when  they  pleased ;  one 
might  stand  anf  goe  upright  in  them,  in  the  midst  of 
them  were  foure  little  tranches  knockt  into  the  ground, 
and  small  sticks  laid  over,  on  which  they  hang  their  Pots, 
and  what  they  had  to  seeth ;  round  about  the  fire  they 
lay  on  mats,  which  are  fheir  beds.  The  houses  were 
double  matted,  for  as  they  were  matted  without,  so  were 

1  O.  T  Mason,  “Woman’s  Share  in  Primitive  CnUrre.’’  pp. 
153-54 


334 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


they  matted  within,  with  newer  &  fairer  matts.  In  the 
houses  we  found  wooden  Boules,  Trayes,  &  Dishes, 
Earthen  Pots,  Hand  baskets  made  of  Crab  shells  wrought 
together,  also  an  English  Paile  or  Bucket,  it  wanted  a 
Bayle,  but  it  had  two  Iron  eares :  there  was  also  Baskets 
of  sundry  sorts,  bigger  and  some  lesser,  firmer  and  some 
coarser:  some  were  curiously  wrought  with  blacke  and 
white  in  pretie  workes.  ’  ’ 1 2 

Among  a  few  tribes,  like  the  Iroquois  (the  Ong- 
wanonsionni,  “we  of  the  extended  lodge”),  an  advanced 
communism  made  it  possible  for  a  number  of  families 
to  unite  in  the  construction  of  a  common  dwelling,  and 
where,  as  in  the  treeless  country  of  Arizona  and  New 
Mexico,  the  buildings  were  constructed  of  stone  rather 
than  wood  and  were  added  to  from  time  to  time,  there 
arose  a  mass  of  continuous  houses,  usually  placed  at 
various  levels,  the  pueblo."  Such  structures  more  usually 
crowned  the  summit  of  an  elevation  with  precipitous 
sides,  a  typical  acropolis,  but  in  the  cliff  region  of  Utah 
and  Colorado,  huge  niches  cut  out  by  nature  upon  the 
face  of  well-nigh  inaccessible  cliffs,  and  improved  by  the 
hand  of  man,  offered  facilities  in  some  ways  superior  to 
those  of  an  isolated  summit. 

Of  the  various  types  of  wooden  dwellings,  the  foun¬ 
dations  may  be  sometimes  traced  by  the  disturbance  of 

1  “Mourt’s  Relation :  An  account  of  the  exploration  sent  out 
by  the  Mayflower,  when  stationed  in  Provincetown  Harbor, 
November.  1620.”  This  account  was  probably  written  by 
William  Bradford. 

2  Cf.  the  various  Annual  Reports  Bureau  of  Ethnology,  Wash¬ 
ington,  e.y..  the  paper  by  V.  Mindeleff  on  “Pueblo  Architec¬ 
ture.”  8th.  1886-87.  and  the  more  recent  one  of  Fewkes,  22nd, 
Pt.  1.  1900-01.  C.  Mindeleff.  in  the  17th  Annual  Report,  treats 
of  Navajo  houses,  and  Fewkes.  in  the  same  volume,  describes 
an  expedition  to  Arizona,  including  details  of  cliff-house  ruins, 
and  makes  a  study  of  food  bowls  and  their  decoration. 


Fig.  82. — Kiva  (restored)  of  the  great  community  house  of  Tyuonvi  (El  Rito  de  los  Frijoles),  New  Mexico.  The  holes 
in  the  cliff  were  for  the  reception  of  beams  of  construction  now  lost.  (From  a  photograph  loaned  by  'Miss  F. 
Grace  Smith.) 


336 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


earth  attending  the  construction,  either  by  the  settling  of 
posts  or  in  more  definite  excavation  (cf.  §15).  This  is 
especially  true  in  the  case  of  defensive  structures,  or 
forts,  which  are  sometimes  extensive,  and  in  which  the 
walls  were  originally  formed  of  palisades  of  upright  logs, 
set  close  together.  In  all  such  study,  however,  there  is 
little  to  attract  the  eye  of  the  inexperienced,  and  even 
structures  involving  considerable  excavation  are  fre¬ 
quently  overlooked,  or  confused  with  the  surface  irreg¬ 
ularities  caused  by  fallen  trees  or  the  erosion  due  to 
brooks.  Munro,  the  Scottish  archeologist,  has  used  as  a 
guide  in  the  excavation  of  prehistoric  hut-sites  in  Scot¬ 
land  and  Ireland,  the  simple  character  of  the  ground 
plan  of  aboriginal  structures.  He  says: 

‘  ‘  My  own  experience  has  hitherto  taught  me  to  regard 
prehistoric  dwellings  as  either  round  or  rectangular,  or 
at  least  near  approaches  to  these  figures.  We  know  that 
forts,  and  other  buildings  constructed  on  hill  tops,  or 
on  the  summit  of  rocks  difficult  of  access,  often  assume 
extremely  irregular  forms  in  accordance  with  the  nat¬ 
ural  contour  of  the  ground.  But  whenever  prehistoric 
man  abandoned  his  primary  places  of  abode,  such  as 
caves  and  rock  shelters,  and  took  to  building  for  himself 
houses  in  the  open,  he  invariably  adopted  the  simplest 
plan  of  construction,  viz.,  either  circle,  oval,  square,  or 
rectangle,  just  as  the  savage  still  does.  ’  ’ 1 

When  habitations  are  constructed  of  stone,  and  espe¬ 
cially  when  the  site  selected  has  a  restricted  area,  as  in 
the  case  of  a  hill  top  or  niche  in  the  side  of  a  cliff,  the 
houses  are  almost  always  built  together  in  the  form  of 
a  complex  communal  dwelling.  Such  were  the  “cities” 
of  antiquity,  like  the  one  constructed  by  Romulus,  or 


1  Robt.  Munro,  “Bosnia,  Herzegovina,  and  Dalmatia,”  1900. 


Fig.  83. — A  modern  Indian  pueblo;  Tesuque,  New  Mexico. 


M‘)Q 

OOo 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


like  those  of  classic  times  in  Greece  and  Palestine.  In 
these  countries,  in  fact,  such  communal  towns  are  still  to 
be  found,  each  new  house  being  constructed  against  pre¬ 
vious  structures,  so  that  the  labor  of  building  at  least 
one  side  wall  is  spared.  “The  cities  and  villages  of 
Palestine,  so  far  as  appearance  is  concerned,  vary  in 
size  merely.  The  houses  of  a  small  village  are  often¬ 
times  just  as  closely  packed  as  the  buildings  in  a  city, 
so  that  a  village  will  look  like  a  fragment  knocked  off 
a  city.  ’  ’ 1 

Thus  is  explained  an  Indian  pueblo,  in  which  an 
archeologist,  familiar  with  classic  lands,  sees  merely  the 
usual  primitive  form  of  communal  dwelling,  an  oppidum, 
or  perhaps  an  acropolis,  in  accordance  with  site  (Cf. 
§25).  Our  great  Southwest,  including  especially  the 
drainage  areas  of  the  San  Juan  and  the  Rio  Grande, 
centering  at  about  the  point  where  the  four  states  of 
Utah,  Colorado,  Arizona,  and  New  Mexico  come  together, 
is  thickly  covered  with  the  remains  of  pueblo  architec¬ 
ture,  and  from  here  the  sites  spread  over  the  border 
into  Mexico,  where  the  region  is  still  in  great  part  unex¬ 
plored.  The  living  remnants  of  the  great  aboriginal 
people  are  gathered  into  about  thirty  pueblos,  including 
among  the  best  known  communities  the  Zuni  and 
Hopi.  These  furnish  data  of  the  utmost  importance  to 
the  student  of  American  ethnology,  and  offer  some  expla¬ 
nation  of  the  manners  and  customs  of  the  pueblo  peoples 
of  the  past.  These  seem  to  have  been  influenced  by  the 
'  ztec  civilization  that  developed  in  Mexico,  although 
there  was  probably  no  original  connection  between 


1  Elilui  Grant,  in  “The  Peasantry  of  Palestine,”  1907,  p.  43. 


PREHISTORY  OF  THE  TWO  AMERICAS 


339 


either  and  the  Central  and  South  American  civiliza¬ 
tion. 

The  pueblos  of  the  valleys  and  mesas  are  undoubtedly 
the  descendants  of  the  older  cliff  houses  and  cliff  pal¬ 
aces,  now  found,  long  ago  deserted,  on  the  walls  of  the 
canyons.  The  similarity  of  architecture  is  indicated, 
among  other  things,  by  the  long  horizontal  rows  of  holes 
along  the  face  of  the  cliff,  for  the  reception  of  the  inner 
ends  of  ceiling  beams.  In  the  modern  pueblo  the  blank 
side  wall  of  a  pre-existing  building  serves  the  purpose 
of  the  cliff  face,  and  receives  the  ceiling  beams  of  the 
new  structure.1 

69.  American  Architecture ;  Remains  of  Temples  and 
Temple-Cities.  It  was  one  of  the  great  disasters  of  his¬ 
tory  that  the  four  great  centers  of  aboriginal  Ameri¬ 
can  civilization,  that  had  developed  under  the  favoring 
conditions  of  a  tropical  climate,  and  needed  only  slight 
aid  and  encouragement  from  the  culture  of  Europe  to 
take  their  place  among  the  great  civilizations  of  the 
world,  should  have  met,  when  almost  at  the  goal,  not 
the  easy-going  French  trappers,  the  shrewd  Dutch  tra¬ 
ders,  or  even  the  Puritanic  English  colonists,  but  the 
Spanish  conquist adores,  accompanied  by  fanatical  relig¬ 
ious  leaders,  representing  in  combination  the  two  worst 
human  passions,  lust  for  gold  and  propagandist  zeal. 
With  no  feeling  of  pity  or  sympathy  concealed  beneath 
either  black  robe  or  steel  corselet,  these  invaders  were 
let  loose  upon  the  innocent  nations,  who,  inspired  by  a 
fatal  tradition  of  white  gods  with  beards  who  were  to 

1  Good  illustrations  of  the  cliff-ruins  of  Tsankawi.  N.  M., 
are  found  in  the  National  Geographic  Magazine,  September, 
1909,  p.  87. 


340 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


help  and  teach  them,  actually  welcomed  the  intruders 
and  offered  presents  of  gold  and  treasure. 

At  the  advent  of  the  Spaniards  the  natives  were  pos¬ 
sessed  of  majestic  temples  of  carved  stone,  superb  monu¬ 
ments,  and  public  courts;  they  possessed  great  treasure 
in  gold  and  jewels;  and  had  actually  recorded  their  his¬ 
tory  through  forgotten  ages  in  books  made  of  the  agave 
leaf,  and  inscribed  in  hieroglyphic  symbols  stamped  by 
means  of  movable  wooden  blocks.  Once  a  Spanish  priest 
penetrating  with  difficulty  into  the  unknown  wilderness, 
came  to  a  village  where  “he  beheld  a  venerable  man 
seated  under  the  shade  of  a  palm  tree,  with  a  great  book 
open  before  him,  from  which  he  was  reading  to  an  atten¬ 
tive  circle  of  auditors  the  wars  and  wanderings  of  their 
forefathers.  With  difficulty  the  priest  got  a  sight  of  the 
precious  volume,  and  found  it  covered  with  figures  and 
signs  in  marvelous  symmetry  and  order.  ’  ’ 1 

Yet,  resisting  the  appropriation  of  their  wealth  by  the 
Spanish  warriors,  these  innocent  people  were  slain  by 
thousands ;  unwilling  to  discard  their  national  beliefs  for 
the  religion  of  the  black-robed  European  priests,  they 
suffered  the  tortures  of  martydom.  Their  temples  were 
demolished ;  their  monuments  were  overthrown ;  and 
their  libraries,  in  part  centuries  old,  and  containing 
priceless  annals,  were  burned  in  the  public  squares.  *  ‘  The 
historian  Torquemada  asserts  that  five  cities  alone 
yielded  to  the  Spanish  governor  at  one  requisition  no 
less  than  sixteen  thousand  volumes,”  of  which  “every 
leaf  was  destroyed.”  2 

1 D.  G.  Brinton,  “Myths  of  the  New  World,”  3rd  Ed.,  1896, 
pp.  26-27.  Quoted  from  Humboldt.  “Vues  des  Cordilleres,”  p.  72. 

2  Ibid.  p.  25. 


PREHISTORY  OF  THE  TWO  AMERICAS 


341 


After  such  a  thorough  campaign  of  annihilation  it 
might  be  supposed  that  nothing  could  now  be  learned 
concerning  the  native  civilizations  that  sought  the  help 
of  the  Spaniards,  but  there  are  still  a  few  data  to  be 
found.  The  ruins  of  their  cities,  overgrown  with  a  trop¬ 
ical  vegetation,  furnish  much,  especially  as  these  ruins 
are  profusely  decorated  with  hieroglyphic  inscriptions; 
there  are  still  some  traditions  to  be  collected  from  the 
few  native  descendants ;  there  are,  too,  the  various  spoken 
languages  and  dialects,  which  assist  in  tracing  tribal 
affinities,  and  are  suggestive  concerning  former  tribal 
wanderings  and  intertribal  associations;  and,  lastly,  a 
handful  of  the  agave  books  have  survived  and  are  kept 
by  some  of  the  great  museums  of  the  world,  as  priceless, 
treasures,  the  Mexican  and  Maya  codices.  From  all 
these  sources  it  has  been  made  out  that  there  were,  at 
the  time  of  the  discovery,  four  of  these  tropical  Ameri¬ 
can  civilizations,  mainly  independent  of  each  other — the 
Aztec,  the  Maya-Quiche,  the  Chibchan,  and  the  Qui- 
chua,  the  first  Mexican,  the  second  centering  in  Yuca¬ 
tan  and  Guatemala,  the  third  Colombian,  near  Bogota, 
and  the  fourth  Peruvian. 

The  Aztecs,  from  their  speech,  a  dialect  of  the  great 
Nahuan  language,  show  some  affinity  with  the  Shosho- 
nean  tribes  further  north  (Comanche,  Pai-ute,  etc.) 
which  suggests  northern  origin  for  the  entire  Nahuan 
family,  and  shows  the  Aztecs  to  be  a  tribe  that  migrated 
southward,  until  it  came  into  contact  with  the  Maya- 
Quiches. 

This  latter,  found  mainly  in  Yucatan  and  Guatemala, 
were  of  a  much  older  civilization  than  their  northern 
neighbors,  the  Aztecs,  and  spoke  a  totally  distinct  lan- 


342 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


guage.  At  the  time  of  the  discovery  they  were  already 
on  the  wane,  yet  their  former  greatness  was  attested  by 
the  great  temple  cities  even  then  abandoned,  and,  from 
our  standpoint,  prehistoric.  It  is  these  Maya  cities  that 
form  the  great  ’ruins  of  Central  America,  which  have 
now  for  so  long  attracted  the  attention  of  archeologists, 
yet  which  still  await  in  great  part  the  spade  of  the  exca¬ 
vator.  This  great  Maya  civilization  was  entirely  dis¬ 
tinct  from  the  two  remaining  ones  of  the  four,  and  is 
separated  by  the  entire  length  of  the  isthmus  and  more. 

The  Chibchan  formed  a  small,  though  independent, 
center  in  the  heart  of  Colombia,  and  were  again  sepa¬ 
rated  by  a  long  interval  from  the  civilization  of  the 
Peruvians.  This  last  contained  two  distinct  subdivis¬ 
ions,  the  Quichas,  with  their  two  tribes,  Inca  and 
Aymara,  inhabiting  the  lofty  Andean  plateau,  with  its 
center  about  Lake  Titicaca,  and  the  Yuncas,  who  occu¬ 
pied  the  coast  regions.  The  Quichas,  who  attained  the 
highest  civilization  among  the  Peruvians,  were  not  want¬ 
ing  in  temples  and  other  stone  structures,  but  their  chief 
peculiarities  were  their  cult  of  the  dead,  with  embalm¬ 
ing  and  the  establishment  of  necropoles  as  with  the  Egyp¬ 
tians,  and  their  extensive  use  of  copper,  to  which  by  an 
art  now  unknown  they  imparted  a  hardness  almost  like 
that  of  steel.  They  were  thus  a  little  beyond  the  true 
Neolithic  stage,  generally  characteristic  of  the  Ameri¬ 
cas,  and  might  more  properly  be  described  as  virtually 
in  the  Bronze  Age.  In  fact,  these  advanced  South 
American  peoples  must  be  technically  ascribed  to  the 
actual  Bronze  Age,  although  in  its  initial  stages,  since 
in  some  of  the  copper  artifacts  more  or  less  tin  is 
found,  occasionally  up  to  twelve  to  sixteen  per  cent, 


Fig.  84. — Ruins  of  one  of  the  temples  at  Tikal,  Guatemala  (Temple  V).  Each 
temple  is  placed  on  the  summit  of  a  lofty  artificial  mound,  in  the  shape  of  a 
pyramid,  with  stone  steps  forming  each  side.  This  entire  city  consists  of  a 
bewildering  mass  of  temples  and  palaces,  arranged  in  general  in  three  separate 
groups,  or  acropoles.  Tikal,  evidently  not  the  ancient  name,  in  the  local 
Maya  speech  signifies  “place  where  spirit  voices  are  heard.”  (After  Tozzer.) 


344 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


thus  making  the  metal  technically  not  copper  but 
bronze. 

The  picturesque  ruins  of  Maya  cities  occur  scattered 
over  Yucatan,  Guatemala,  and  a  part  of  Honduras  and 
Nicaragua,  buried  in  such  luxuriant  tropical  vegetation 
that  they  are  found  with  great  difficulty,  and  some  in¬ 
deed,  may  yet  remain  undiscovered.  Not  uncommon 
have  been  experiences  like  that  of  Joaquin  Miller  in 
Nicaragua,  who 

‘  Hound  a  city  old, — so  old, 

Its  very  walls  were  turned  to  mould, 

And  stately  trees  upon  them  stood. 

No  history  has  mentioned  it, 

No  map  has  given  it  a  place ; 

The  last  dim  trace  of  tribe  and  race — 

The  world’s  forgetfulness  is  fit. 

It  held  one  structure  grand  and  mossed, 

Mighty  as  any  castle  sung, 

And  old  when  oldest  Ind  was  young, 

With  threshold  Christian  never  cross’d; 

A  temple  budded  to  the  sun, 

Along  whose  somber  altar  stone 
Brown  bleeding  virgins  had  been  strown, 

Like  leaves,  where  leaves  are  crisp  and  dun, 

In  ages  ere  the  Sphinx  was  born, 

Or  Babylon  had  birth  or  morn.1 

Whether  in  serious  prose  one  may  impute  so  vast  an 
age  to  Central  America  ruins  is  doubtful,  since  at  the 
arrival  of  the  Spaniards  at  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth 
century,  the  Maya  civilization,  although  long  past  its 
zenith,  was  yet  manifest  in  a  few  places,  and  some  of 
the  cities  were  still  inhabited. 

1  Joaquin  Miller,  “Songs  of  the  Sierras,”  1871,  in  “With 
Walker  in  Nicaragua.” 


345 


PREHISTORY  OF  THE  TWO  AMERICAS 

The  first  of  the  ruined  Maya  cities  to  attract  the  gen¬ 
eral  attention  of  the  modern  world,  were  those  explored 
during  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century,  such  as 
Uxmal  (Yucatan),  Copan  (Honduras),  and  Palenique 
(Southern  Mexico),  but  the  explorations  of  the  last  few 
years,  especially  those  conducted  since  1898  by  the  Pea¬ 
body  Museum  of  Cambridge,1  have  revealed  a  large  num¬ 
ber  of  other  cities  of  equal  or  greater  size  and  grandeur 
— Piedras  Negras,  Yaxchilan,  Tikal,  Loltun,  Chacmol- 
tun,  and  many  others. 

Fig.  85  (p.  000)  shows  a  carved  stone  lintel  (No.  26) 
from  the  temple  at  Yaxchilan,  Usumatsintla  Valley,  on 
the  Guatemala  side  of  the  boundary.  (108x85  cm.)  “A 
woman  of  rank  presents  a  tiger’s  head,  prepared  as  a 
helmet,  to  the  sacrificial  priest.  The  woman  has  on 
shoes,  her  cuffs  are  of  scale  work,  her  tunic  (huipilli) 
shows  a  reticulated  pattern,  her  headdress  is  of  medium 
size  and  adorned  with  conventionalized  flowers,  her  ear- 
ornaments  are  very  distinct,  and  a  line  of  small  dots 
borders  the  lips  and  ends  in  a  scroll  on  the  cheek  turned 
toward  the  spectator.  Below  the  face  is  a  necklace  of 
stone  beads,  with  a  medallion  in  front.  The  woman  car¬ 
ries  with  both  hands  a  tiger’s  head,  with  a  great  plume 
of  feathers,  probably  meant  as  a  head  covering  for  the 
priest.  ...  A  pendant  ornamented  with  tassels  hangs 
from  the  woman’s  hands  down  to  the  ground.  The 
priest  has  buskins,  leg-bands,  and  striped  cuffs.  His 

1  Peabody  Museum  Memoirs,  beginning  1900,  Folios,  with 
beautiful  photographs.  A  good  account  of  excavation  at  a 
single  site  is  found  in  Morley’s  recent  paper  on  the  ruins  of 
Chichen  Itza,  Yucatan,  publ.  by  the  Carnegie  Institute,  Wasln 
ington,  Nov.  1,  1913.  This  includes  an  excellent  bibliography 
on  Maya  sites. 


34G  MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 

jacket  shows  a  tasteful  pattern  in  lines,  and  is  orna¬ 
mented  with  six  rayless  stars ;  a  broad  sash  of  shell-work 
reaches  from  his  neck  to  his  knees;  the  ear  ornaments 
are  peculiar..  His  headdress,  with  handsomely  executed 
flowers,  has  a  grotesque  face  on  top,  and  out  of  the  knot 
at  the  back  falls  a  plume  of  feathers.  In  his  right  hand 
the  priest  holds  a  sacrificial  knife,  and  his  left  hand 
lies  against  the  front  of  the  tiger’s  head.”  There  is 
also  a  short  inscription  of  nine  characters,  arranged  in 
the  form  of  a  T,  between  the  two  figures. 

Although  showing  much  variation  in  the  ground  plan, 
in  accordance  with  the  surface  topography,  the  cities 
are  very  similar  in  general  architecture.  The  extant 
ruins  are  mainly  those  of  temples  and  palaces,  arranged 
about  paved  courts,  or  crowning  isolated  hills,  accom¬ 
panied  by  monuments  erected  here  and  there.  The  tem¬ 
ples  and  other  pretentious  buildings  are  set  upon  a 
series  of  great  stone  bases,  formed  like  the  lower  tiers  of 
pyramids,  so  that  the  edifices  that  crown  the  top  are 
accessible  by  steps  from  all  directions.  The  chambers 
and  passage  ways  are  roofed  over,  either  by  horizontal 
beams  and  architraves,  or  by  the  use  of  pointed  arches, 
high  and  narrow,  with  straight  sides,  like  the  capital 
letter  A.  Occasionally,  too,  the  point  is  truncated  and 
finished  by  a  short  horizontal  piece,  like  the  cross-bar 
of  the  same  letter.  The  isolated  steles  are  monolithic, 
with  usually  two  opposing  flat  surfaces  for  carving,  and 
are  often  securely  set  into  the  cement  that  forms  the 
pavement  of  the  plaza  or  court. 

Everywhere,  upon  convenient  surfaces,  walls,  stelae, 
and  even  steps,  there  is  a  profusion  of  carving,  done  in 
an  archaic,  and  often  grotesque,  style  suggestive  of 


Fig.  85. — After  Teobert  Maler. 


348 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


Egyptian  and  early  Greek  art  (Mycenean).  The  iso¬ 
lated  stelee  are  carved,  usually  upon  two  opposite  sides, 
with  conventionalized  human  figures,  apparently  por¬ 
traits  of  distinguished  personages,  who  are  probably 
priestly  rulers.  They  are  accompanied  by  heads  and 
other  symbols  of  various  deities,  expressing  their  par¬ 
ticular  allegiance,  and  in  a  few  cases  human  victims, 
alive  and  bound  with  cords,  lie  at  their  feet.  In  all  cases, 
on  stele  or  wall  or  step,  the  available  places,  such  as  the 
spaces  between  pictures,  are  covered  with  inscriptions, 
called  for  convenience  glyphs,  in  the  same  square  form 
and  of  the  same  general  appearance  as  those  preservd 
in  the  few  extant  manuscripts.  Their  variety,  however, 
is  endless  and  thus  they  seem  to  be  not  phonetic  symbols, 
but  an  elaborate  system  of  pictographs,  perhaps  given 
a  definite  meaning  by  combining  them  with  certain  ideo¬ 
graphic  signs.  In  some  favored  spots,  also,  as  upon  the 
interior  walls  of  chambers,  extensive  mural  paintings 
are  still  to  be  seen. 

In  all  cases  time  and  luxuriance  of  tropical  vegeta¬ 
tion  have  crumbled  the  stone  and  forced  the  joints  apart, 
and  unless  they  are  speedily  taken  care  of  the  destruc¬ 
tion  of  these  beautiful  ruins  is  inevitable.  The  fall  of 
a  giant  tree  that  holds  in  the  tenacious  grasp  of  its  roots 
important  pieces  of  masonry  may  do  irreparable  dam¬ 
age  to  the  site  of  a  temple  or  palace,  while  a  forest  fire, 
that  often  engenders  a  high  degree  of  heat,  especially 
if  followed  at  once  by  a  rainstorm,  while  the  stone  is  still 
hot,  might  prove  the  complete  destruction  of  an  entire 
city.  In  addition  to  natural  forces,  however,  innu¬ 
merable  human  atrocities  are  ever  imminent,  especially 
under  the  sway  of  a  lax  Central  American  government, 


PREHISTORY  OF  THE  TWO  AMERICAS 


340 


and  the  gravest  dangers  are  feared  by  archeologists  for 
the  safety  of  these  priceless  ruins.  In  one  case  a  con¬ 
cession  of  land,  which  happened  to  include  an  important 
prehistoric  city,  was  given  by  the  government  to  some 
native  woodchoppers  for  a  few  dollars;  in  another  a 
railroad  has  been  run  perilously  near  an  important  site, 
and  the  inevitable  train  of  unregulated  visitors  have 
scraped  off  precious  bits  of  mural  painting  “and  the 
clean  white  space  thus  made  upon  the  wall  has  been 
utilized  to  inscribe  visitors’  names  and  mongrel 
poetry.  ’ ’ 1 

Even  the  native  Mayas,  although  descendants  of  the 
race  who  built  the  monuments,  retain  little  or  no  national 
consciousness,  and  are  dangerous  in  several  ways :  some 
dig  in  all  directions  through  the  ruins,  in  search  of  the 
great  stores  of  gold  and  treasure  which  they  believe  to 
be  buried  there ;  others  fear  the  magical  power  of  the 
effigies  carved  upon  the  steles,  and  render  them  harm¬ 
less  by  the  simple  and  childish  device  of  obliterating 
their  faces.  It  is  thus  with  pleasure  that  we  here  record 
the  praiseworthy  efforts  of  at  least  one  enterprise  to 
clear  and  preserve  intact  these  priceless  ruins.  The 
United  Fruit  Co.  has  recently  acquired  some  land  in 
Guatemala,  within  which  is  situated  the  city  site  of 
Quirigua,  a  typical  ruin.  This  site  the  Company,  at  the 
suggestion  of  its  local  manager,  Mr.  Victor  M.  Cutter 
of  Porto  Barrios,  has  set  apart  for  a  permanent  park, 
and  intends  to  free  the  ruins  from  their  load  of  tropical 
vegetation,  to  have  them  thoroughly  excavated  and  kept 


1  Edw.  II.  Thompson,  in  Memoirs,  Peabody  Museum,  Yol.  3, 
No.  1,  p.  10. 


350 


MAX’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


from  further  destruction,  and  eventually  to  render  the 
site  accessible  for  visitors  and  students. 

This  work  is  now  well  under  way,  under  the  manage¬ 
ment  of  Mr.  Edgar  L.  Hewett,  aided  by  the  St.  Louis 
Society  of  the  Archeological  Institute  of  America,  who 
have  already  published  the  report  of  Mr.  Hewitt’s  work 
for  the  first  two  years  of  the  undertaking  (1910,  1911). 1 
Quirigua  will  probably  thus  become  for  some  time  the 
most  available  site  for  the  study  of  the  prehistoric  civ¬ 
ilization  of  Central  America,  yet  it  is  to  be  hoped  that 
either  the  local  governments,  or  the  enterprise  of  private 
societies  and  individuals,  will  in  the  near  future  subject 
the  other  important  sites  to  a  similar  treatment. 

70.  American  Graves. — Among  many  tribes  of  the 
American  Indians  the  cult  of  the  dead  was  well  devel¬ 
oped,  and  in  those  cases  in  which  the  body  was  placed 
in  a  grave  or  tomb  the  most  valued  possessions  of  the 
deceased  were  frequently  buried  with  him.2  During  the 
summer  of  1913  an  important  aboriginal  cemetery  was 
unearthed  at  Burr’s  Hill  in  Warren,  R,  I.,  the  Indian 
“Sowwams,”  chief  town  of  the  Wampanoags.  This  cem¬ 
etery,  as  dated  from  the  associated  objects,  covers  the 
trade  period  with  Europeans  in  that  place,  and  ends, 
naturally,  with  the  death  of  King  Philip,  their  leader, 
and  the  flight  of  the  tribe  (about  1600-1676).  Great 


1  Edgar  L.  Hewett,  “Two  Seasons’  Work  in  Guatemala.” 
Bull.  Archeol.  Inst.  Amer.,  June.  1911.  Of.  also  a  paper  by 
Neil  M.  Judd,  in  Amer.  Anthropoh,  Vol.  17,  1915,  pp.  128-138, 
with  account  of  the  work  of  making  plaster  casts  of  works  of 
art  at  Quirigua. 

2  For  a  recent  summary  of  methods  of  burial  among  the 
North  American  Indians,  cf.  David  I.  Bushnell,  Jr..  “Native 
Gemeteries  and  Forms  of  Burial  East  of  the  Mississippi,”  as 
Bulletin  71  of  the  Bureau  of  Amer.  Ethnology,  1920. 


PREHISTORY  OF  THE  TWO  AMERICAS 


351 


quantities  of  kettles,  spoons,  knives,  beads,  pipes,  swords, 
and  guns,  as  well  as  numerous  other  objects,  were  ob¬ 
tained,  all  of  English,  French,  and  Dutch  manufacture, 
besides  much  native  wampum  and  pottery.  Generally 
there  was  a  quantity  of  red  pigments,  in  powder  or 
lumps,  and  the  few  pieces  of  dried  skin  found  showed 
that  this  same  pigment  had  been  used  in  some  cases  to 
cover  the  body  of  the  deceased. 

Allowing  for  the  new  elements  in  the  objects  found, 
introduced  by  trade  with  Europeans,  the  graves  found 
at  Warren  correspond  exactly  to  the  descriptions  of  the 
older  graves  excavated  on  Cape  Cod  (Truro)  by  the 
Plymouth  Pilgrims  in  November,  1620,  while  the  May¬ 
flower  lay  in  the  harbor  at  Provincetown.  One  of  the 
excavators,  probably  William  Bradford,  gives  the  fol¬ 
lowing  account : 

“and  as  we  came  into  the  plaine  ground,  wee  found  a 
place  like  a  graue,  but  it  was  much  bigger  and  longer 
than  we  had  yet  scene.  It  was  also  covered  with  boords, 
so  as  we  mused  what  it  should  be,  and  resolved  to  dig  it 
vp,  where  we  found,  first  a  Matt,  and  vnder  that  a  fayre 
Bow,  and  there  another  Matt,  and  vnder  that  a  boorcl 
about  three  quarters  long,  finely  carued  and  paynted, 
with  three  tynes,  or  brooches  on  the  top,  like  a  Crowne ; 
also  between  the  Matts  we  found  Boules,  Trayes,  Dishes, 
and  such  like  Trinkets;  at  length  we  came  to  a  faire  new 
Matt,  and  vnder  that  two  Bundles,  the  one  bigger,  the 
other  lesse.  We  opened  the  greater  and  found  in  it  a 
great  quantitie  of  fine  and  perfect  red  Powder,  and  in 
it  the  bones  and  skull  of  a  man.  The  skull  had  fine  yel¬ 
low  haire  still  on  it,  and  some  of  the  flesh  vnconsumed ; 
there  was  bound  up  with  it  a  knife,  a  packneedle  and 
two  or  threefold  iron  things.  It  was  bound  up  in  savior’s 
canvas  Casacke,  and  a  payre  of  cloth  breeches ;  the  red 
powder  was  a  kind  of  Embaulment,  and  yeelded  a  strong, 


352 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


but  not  offensiue  smell,  it  was  as  fine  as  any  flower.  We 
opened  the  lesse  bundle  likewise,  and  found  of  the  same 
Powder  in  it,  and  the  bones  and  head  of  a  little  childe, 
about  the  leggs,  and  other  parts  of  it  was  bound  strings, 
and  bracelets  of  fine  white  Beads;  there  was  also  by  it 
a  little  Bow  about  three  quarters  long,  and  some  other 
odd  knackes ;  we  brought  sundry  of  the  pretiest  things 
away  with  vs,  and  covered  the  Corps  vp  again.  After 
this,  we  digged  in  sundry  like  places,  but  found  no  more 
Corne,  nor  anything  else  but  Graues :  There  was  varietie 
of  opinions  amongst  vs  about  the  embalmed  person ; 
some  thought  it  was  an  Indian  Lord  and  King:  others 
sayd,  the  Indians  haue  all  blacke  hayre,  and  never  any 
was  seene  with  brown  or  yellow  hayre ;  some  thought  it 
was  a  Christian  of  some  speciall  note,  which  had  dyed 
amongst  them,  and  they  thus  buried  him  to  honour  him ; 
others  thought,  they  had  killed  him,  and  did  it  in  triumph 
over  him.  ’  ’ 1 

This  early  account  of  the  archeological  investigations 
by  the  New  England  Puritans  reveals  them  as  very  much 
like  their  present  descendants,  and  showing  some  true 
scientific  interest  in  their  red  brothers,  although,  per¬ 
haps,  not  a  wholly  sympathetic  one.  We  certainly  share 
with  them  their  doubts  concerning  the  body  with  the 
“fine  yellow  hayre,”  as  we  are  prevented  from  consid¬ 
ering  it  simply  faded,  as  sometimes  occurs  in  old  graves, 
by  the  evident  recency  of  the  burial  with  “some  of  the 
flesh  unconsumed.”  Their  surmises  concerning  this 
problematic  body  have  been  shared  by  all  later  commen¬ 
tators,  but  there  is  not  the  least  doubt  concerning  the 
aboriginal  nature  of  the  graves  in  general,  and  their 
condition.  As  in  this  excavation  by  the  Puritans,  great 
masses  and  lumps  of  a  similar  red  powder,  undoubtedly 


1  “Mourt’s  Relation,”  first  paper. 


PREHISTORY  OF  THE  TWO  AMERICAS 


353 


a  paint  or  pigment,  were  found  in  the  graves  excavated 
at  Warren,  R.  I.,  in  1913,  and  in  at  least  one  case  an 
extensive  portion  of  skin  from  one  of  the  bodies  was 
found  dried,  and  covered  with  this  paint,  which  seemed 
to  have  acted  as  a  preservative.  This  red  powder  is 
often  characteristic  of  aboriginal  graves,  as  was  found 
recently  during  the  excavation  of  graves  in  Maine.  In 
many  of  these,  where  all  traces  of  bones  and  teeth  had 
long  disappeared,  the  indestructible  red  powder  was 
frequently  found  in  abundance. 

In  aboriginal  interments  the  body  was  seldom  if  ever 
placed  in  the  grave  in  an  extended  position,  but  was 
folded  up  in  some  more  or  less  natural  position.  Rarely, 
as  was  often  the  case  with  the  more  distinguished  dead, 
the  body  was  placed  in  a  true  sitting  position,  but  this 
is  usually  a  journalistic  phrase,  and  adapted  to  express 
any  of  the  many  possible  folded  positions.  A  common 
position  for  western  Massachusetts  was  a  folded  or 
flexed  one,  the  body  lying  on  the  right  side,  with  the 
knees  to  the  chin,  and  the  arms  placed  together  with  the 
hands  in  front  of  the  face.  There  is  often  a  more  or 
less  universal  custom  locally  to  place  all  bodies  in  a 
similar  orientation  to  the  points  of  the  compass,  and 
in  excavation  this  point  should  always  be  carefully 
noted,  but  even  when  a  certain  position  seems  the  rule, 
there  are  likely  to  be  many  exceptions. 

Concerning  the  probable  reasons  for  folding  aborigi¬ 
nal  bodies,  the  similar  customs  still  in  use  among  other 
primitive  peoples,  are  very  suggestive.  There  may  be 
only  the  utilitarian  idea  of  putting  the  body  into  as 
small  a  compass  as  possible  to  avoid  digging  a  large  hole ; 
there  are  also  frequently  found  definite  ideas  connected 


MAX'S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


354 

with  certain  religions  beliefs.  Of  these  the  most  general 
seems  to  be  some  idea  of  the  possible  possession  of  the 
body  by  an  evil  spirit,  which,  without  a  body,  naturally 
cannot  do  very  much  harm.  For  this  very  reason  it  is 
plain  that  such  a  spirit  seeks  to  enter  a  recent  body  in 
order  to  accomplish  his  purposes,  and  it  is  the  desire  of 
the  friends  of  the  deceased  to  prevent  such  action.  Con¬ 
sequently  it  often  becomes  the  custom  to  bind  and  tie 
up  a  body  as  soon  as  life  departs,  as  a  preventive  of  its 
later  possession,  and  the  bones  of  such  a  bound  body, 
long  after  the  decay  both  of  the  flesh  and  of  the  leathern 
bonds,  would  be  in  just  the  position  as  is  actually  the 
case. 

With  an  aboriginal  body  certain  objects,  like  the  weap¬ 
ons  or  other  personal  utensils,  or  the  food  bowls  or 
other  dishes,  are  frequently  placed,  and  thus  a  grave, 
even  when  the  bones  have  long  since  disappeared,  is 
often  a  fruitful  source  of  valuable  objects. 

Quite  aside  from  interment  in  the  earth,  the  other 
forms  of  the  disposal  of  the  dead,  like  suspension  of  the 
body  upon  the  bough  of  a  tree,  burial  of  the  whole  body 
or  of  its  dismembered  portions  in  an  urn,  occur  in 
various  parts  of  America.  Cremation  does  not  seem  to 
have  been  practiced  in  the  New  World.1 

71.  Mounds,  Funereal  and  Commemorative. — A  mound 
in  the  sense  of  a  raised  hillock  of  earth  more  or  less  reg¬ 
ular  in  shape  and  raised  above  the  surrounding  surface, 
may  be  the  result  of  various  causes.  It  may  be  due 
to  agencies  other  than  human,  as  the  so-called 

1  For  a  general  synopsis  of  the  mortuary  customs  of  the 
North  American  Indians,  cf.  Yarrow,  in  Annual  Reports  of  the 
Bureau  of  Ethnology,  Vol.  1. 


PREHISTORY  OF  THE  TWO  AMERICAS  355 

“  tree-mounds, 9  ’  resulting  from  the  uprooting  of  a  great 
tree,  and  the  subsequent  deposition  of  the  earth  and 
stones  held  by  the  roots ;  or,  again,  it  may  be  connected 
with  human  activities  although  produced  quite  uninten¬ 
tionally,  as  in  the  case  of  wind-blown  sand  heaped  over 
the  ruins  of  an  abandoned  pueblo  or  town  site.  Such 
city  mounds,  or  tells,1  are  seen  by  hundreds  in  the  plains 
of  Mesopotamia,  and  similar  ones  occur  in  great  num¬ 
bers  in  the  northern  part  of  Mexico.2 

Distinct  from  all  such  are  mounds  intentionally  con¬ 
structed  by  the  hand  of  man,  and  of  these  there  are  many 
kinds,  corresponding  to  a  variety  of  purposes.  Some 
may  form  a  part  of  a  system  of  defensive  earthworks, 
or  be  erected  as  the  foundation  of  some  other  structure ; 
others  are  funeral  or  commemorative,  that  is,  tombs 
or  monuments. 

The  development  of  a  funereal  mound  as  a  grave  for 
a  single  individual  may  receive  at  least  a  partial  expla¬ 
nation  from  the  custom  yet  practically  universal  over 
large  portions  of  China.  In  this  latter  country  the  dead 
are  not  buried,  that  is,  inhumed  beneath  the  surface ; 
but  the  coffin,  often  a  ponderous  affair,  is  placed  some¬ 
where  in  a  field  or  on  the  ground  at  the  base  of  a  city 
wall,  and  covered,  perhaps  with  a  straw  thatch,  a  tiled 
roof,  or  eventually  surrounded  by  a  brick  wall,  built 
close  about  it.  As  a  second  stage,  which  may  occur 
months,  or  even  years  afterward,  the  earth  is  heaped 
around  and  above  the  entire  structure,  and  forms  a  more 
or  less  pretentious  mound. 

'Arabic  word,  used  throughout  Mesopotamia  to  designate 
such  structures. 

2  Cf.  Carl  Lumholz,  “Unknown  Mexico,”  1902,  Vol.  1,  Chap.  IV, 


356 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


Many  of  the  mounds  of  artificial  origin,  which  occur 
all  over  North  America,  and  especially  in  Ohio  and 
Wisconsin,  betray  upon  excavation  a  structure  similar  to 
these  recent  Chinese  ones :  a  mound  of  earth,  and  at  their 
core  a  single  skeleton,  often  enclosed  in  a  stone  cist  or 


erected  over  them.  (After  Thomas.) 

tomb  chamber  of  some  sort.  The  matter  is  often  ren¬ 
dered  at  first  sight  more  complicated  by  the  presence  of 
other  aboriginal  skeletons,  placed  irregularly  over  the 
surface,  and  evidently  due  to  the  intrusive  burial,  often 
centuries  after  the  erection  of  the  original  mound,  of 
other  bodies,  whose  friends  sought  the  spot  either  from 


PREHISTORY  OF  THE  TWO  AMERICAS  357 

the  supposed  sancity  of  such  places,  or  because  of  the 
more  utilitarian  advantage  of  digging  in  a  spot  of  soft 

soil. 

When  actually  excavated,  such  mounds  reveal  their 
purpose  as  tombs  of  the  dead  (tumuli)  by  the  presence 


Fig.  87.— The  Gallaway  Mound,  Munroe  Co.,  Tennessee.  Here  there  is  a  special 
chamber,  defined  by  a  circle  of  stones,  but  without  roof  or  floor,  in  which 
were  four  skeletons.  The  rest,  ten  in  number,  were  outside  of  this  circle,  but 
still  beneath  the  middle  portion  of  the  mound,  and  at  the  same  level  as  the 
rest.  They  are  thus  contemporary  with  the  enclosed  ones,  and  not  the  result 
of  later  intrusive  burials.  (After  Thomas.) 

in  the  center  of  one  or  more  bodies,  the  position  of  which 
is  directly  related  to  the  position  of  the  mound,  form¬ 
ing  its  core.  In  the  simplest  cases  the  body,  or  bodies, 
were  laid  either  flat  upon  the  ground  or  upon  the  floor 


Fig.  88. — Mound  in  Allamakee  Co.,  Iowa.  Within  this  is  a  stone  chamber,  en¬ 
closing  a  seated  skeleton,  surrounded  by  vases  and  other  utensils.  (After 
Thomas.) 


Fig.  89. — Vertical  section  through  the  central  axis. 


Fig.  9D. — Ground  Plan. 

Two  plans  of  a  mound  in  Jo  Daviess  Co.,  Ill.,  10  feet  high,  and  65  feet  in 
diameter.  It  contained  a  crypt  13  by  7  feet  in  ground  plan,  with  an  inner 
chamber  7  feet  square.  This  contained  eleven  seated  skeletons. 


PREHISTORY  OB1  THE  TWO  AMERICAS 


359 


of  a  shallow  pit,  and  the  mound  piled  directly  upon 
them  (Fig.  86);  or  perhaps  a  large  part  were  thus 
treated,  while  a  few,  evidently  the  more  eminent  per¬ 
sonages,  were  partially  protected  by  rings  of  stones 
(Fig.  87).  In  other  cases  the  stone  protection  becomes 
a  complete  cist,  or  coffin,  or  an  elaborate  tomb  chamber, 
within  which  the  dead  were  laid,  surrounded  by  their 
possessions,  in  the  form  of  pottery  or  stone  implements. 
(Fig.  88-90.) 

Mounds  of  these  various  types  occur  in  many  parts 
of  the  United  States ;  so  generally  distributed,  in  fact, 
that  in  a  recent  map  of  mounds  in  this  country  east  of 
the  Mississippi,  the  one  territory  adequately  studied  in 
this  respect,  the  only  states  in  which  mounds  have  not 
been  found  thus  far  are  Vermont  and  Delaware.  While 
few  and  scattered  along  the  Atlantic  slope,  except  for 
a  small  territory  in  Florida,  they  occur  in  profusion  in 
the  Central  Eastern  states,  that  is,  Wisconsin,  Michigan, 
Illinois,  Ohio,  Kentucky,  and  Tennessee.  Wisconsin  pos¬ 
sesses,  almost  exclusively,  .the  singular  type  known  as 
elongate  mounds,  in  the  form  of  long  ramparts,  and 
shares  with  Ohio  the  possession  of  the  so-called  effigy 
mounds,  with  outlines  in  the  form  of  various  animals; 
turtles,  serpents,  or  birds  with  outspread  wings.  Other 
than  in  shape,  however,  these  singular  mounds  are  not 
different  from  the  rest.1 

Concerning  the  builders  of  the  mounds,  later  investi¬ 
gation  has  found  nothing  in  support  of  the  older  view, 
widely  diffused  in  school  textbooks  and  in  popular  writ- 

1The  most  extensive  work  upon  the  mounds  of  the  XT.  S. 
is  that  of  Cyrus  Thomas,  “Burial  Mounds  of  Northern  United 
States,”  in  B.  of  Ethnol.,  5th  Ann.  Rep.,  1SS3-S4. 


360 


MAN'S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


ings,  that  they  were  the  work  of  a  race  other  than  the 
modern  Indian.  The  skeletons  thus  far  found  are  of 
Indian  type,  and  certain  mounds  have  been  erected  quite 
within  historic  times,  or  within  the  tribal  memory  of  the 
Indians  themselves.  In  the  writings  of  the  early  mis¬ 
sionaries  and  explorers,  also,  there  is  abundant  evidence 
of  the  causal  association  of  Indians  with  mounds. 

Some  of  the  most  extensive  mound  formation  in  the 
United  States  occurs  in  certain  parts  of  Ohio,  such  as 
the  Scioto  Valley  at  Chillicothe  and  the  Muskingam 
Valley  at  Marietta.  At  such  sites  there  occur  various 
types  of  earthworks,  ramparts,  platforms,  and  simple 
mounds,  the  ground  plans  of  which  suggest  the  former 
presence  of  something  like  a  city,  which,  in  the  time 
of  its  culmination,  covered  with  such  superstructures  as 
the  Indians  were  able  to  build,  must  have  made  an 
imposing  appearance.  At  Marietta,  for  instance,  on  a 
level  plain  at  the  juncture  of  the  Muskingam  with  the 
Ohio,  the  first  white  settlers  saw  a  series  of  pretentious 
earthworks,  which,  judging  from  contemporary  paint¬ 
ings  and  other  sketches,  consisted  of  raised  embank¬ 
ments  in  the  form  of  two  great  squares  and  a  large 
mound,  surrounded  by  a  moat;  also  from  the  middle  of 
one  side  of  the  larger  square  ran  two  long  walls  par¬ 
allel  with  each  other,  evidently  forming  the  sides  of  a 
broad  avenue  leading  away  from  the  square,  and  sug- 
esting  a  via  sacra ,  or  path  for  ceremonial  processions. 
The  idea  is  still  further  suggested  by  the  great  flat 
platforms,  or  temple  foundations,  placed  within  the 
larger  square. 

The  present  city  of  Marietta  is  practically  coincident 
with  this  pretentious  site  of  the  aborigines,  and  the 


PREHISTORY  OF  THE  TWO  AMERICAS 


361 


earthworks  are  mostly  leveled  or  built  into  streets.  The 
largest  of  the  “temple  sites”  is  now  used  for  the  new 
city  library,  which  insures  its  preservation,  and  the  great 
mound  had  its  perpetuation  secured  by  selecting  the 
surrounding  land  as  the  site  for  the  modern  cemetery. 
This  mound  is  thirty  feet  in  height,  and  one  hundred 
and  fifteen  feet  in  diameter,  beyond  which  is  a  moat 
fifteen  feet  wide  and  four  feet  deep,  with  an  external 
enclosing  rampart  outside  of  this.  On  one  side  the 
mound  is  provided  with  a  flight  of  modern  steps,  ascend¬ 
ing  to  a  flat  area  on  the  top,  where  are  placed  several 
seats  for  the  accommodation  of  visitors.1 

72.  American  Petroglyphs  and  Other  Form  of  Writ¬ 
ing. — The  generic  word  petroglyph ,  signifying  any  carv¬ 
ing  executed  upon  stone,  is  used  more  especially  to  mean 
something  carved  in  such  a  way  as  to  impart  informa¬ 
tion — in  a  broad  sense,  an  inscription.  Such  petroglyphs, 
which  consist  in  part  of  definite,  clearly  recognized  pic¬ 
tures,  and  in  part  of  lines  of  unknown  significance,  occur 
throughout  the  United  States,  engraved,  sometimes 
upon  the  sides  of  cliffs  and  large  boulders,  sometimes 
upon  smaller  slabs  and  stones.  A  typical  petroglyph, 
and  one  which  has  become  historic,  in  the  sense  of  hav¬ 
ing  been  much  exploited,  visited,  and  written  about,  is 
the  famous  Dighton  Rock,  near  Fall  River,  Mass.  For 
a  time,  when  American  archeology  was  in  its  infancy, 


1  For  a  description  of  this  site,  as  well  as  many  others,  the 
classic  authority  is  Squier  and  Davis,”  Ancient  Monuments  of 
the  Mississippi  Valley,”  Smithsonian  Institution,  1S47.  This  is 
provided  with  numerous  maps  and  ground  plans.  The  volume 
forms  the  first  number  of  the  “Smithsonian  Contributions  to 
Knowedge,”  and  is  a  worthy  beginning  volume  from  an  institu¬ 
tion  that  was  then  in  its  infancy. 


3G2 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


this  rock  was  brought  into  connection  with  a  partially 
armored  Indian  skeleton  found  in  the  neighborhood, 
“the  Skeleton  in  Armor,”  and  also  with  a  stone  mill 
belonging  to  one  of  the  early  white  settlers  of  Newport, 
and  probably  built  by  him;  and  the  whole  series  of 
objects,  taken  together,  were  considered  to  be  the  remains 


Fig.  91. — A  recent  photograph  of  the  famous  Dighton  Rock,  as  it  lies  in  the 
Taunton  River,  exposed  at  high  tide.  (From  a  photograph  loaned  by  E.  B. 
Delabarre.) 


of  an  early  Scandinavian  colony.  This,  under  the  lead¬ 
ership  of  one  Leif  Eriksen,  came  to  some  unknown  coun¬ 
tries  in  the  west  about  the  year  1000  A.  D.,  and  one  of 
these,  called  in  the  saga  “Vinland  the  Good,”  has  been 
doubtfully  identified  with  the  shores  of  Massachusetts  or 
"Rhode  Island.  The  Dighton  Rock  inscription  is,  how¬ 
ever,  mainly  Indian,  with  later  additions,  and  shows 


PREHISTORY  OF  THE  TWO  AMERICAS 


363 


the  typical  style  characteristic  of  aboriginal  picto- 
graphs.1 

Although  there  has  been  as  yet  no  great  success  in 
reading  or  understanding  these  inscriptions,  some  light 
is  shed  upon  the  subject  by  studying  the  devices  and 
or  the  lower  side  of  buffalo  hides,  worked  into  the  deco¬ 
inscriptions  of  our  modern  Indians,  who  are  able  not 
only  to  make  such  writings,  but  to  tell  us  what  they 
mean  by  them,  and  how  they  are  read.  This  picture 
writing  of  the  present  time  is  wrought  upon  birch  bark 
rative  patterns  of  baskets  or  wampum  belts,  or  even  tat¬ 
tooed  into  the  skin  of  their  own  bodies.  From  such  stud¬ 
ies  it  may  be  deduced:  (1)  that  the  American  aborigines 
made  no  attempt  at  phonetic  writing,  that  is,  the  repre¬ 
sentation  of  definite  vocal  sounds  by  conventional  char¬ 
acters;2  (2)  that  their  main  attempts  at  expressing 
thoughts  were  by  means  of  pictures  that  portrayed  actual 
events,  or  represented  an  idea;  and  (3)  that  certain  of 
these  symbols,  often  used,  became  highly  conventional¬ 
ized  and  obscure,  and  required  to  be  learned  individ¬ 
ually  to  give  any  meaning.  Many  of  these  obscurer 
signs,  however,  probably  represent  a  natural  develop¬ 
ment  from  an  older  form  in  which  a  definite  picture  was 
apparent,  and  which,  losing  lines  and  curves  as  it  be- 

1  For  a  critical  historical  study  of  the  Dighton  Rock,  and 
especially  the  psychology  of  those  who  have  investigated  it, 
cf.  the  exhaustive  papers  of  E.  B.  Delabarre.  These  are  (1) 
“Early  Interest  in  Dighton  Rock.”  Cambridge,  Univ.  Press, 
1916;  (2)  “Middle  Period  of  Dighton  Rock  History,”  ibid., 
1917 ;  (3)  “Recent  History  of  Dighton  Rock.”  ibid.,  1919.  These 
napers  were  issued  as  Publications  of  the  Colonial  Society  of 
Massachusetts. 

2  Students  of  Central  American  archeology  are  inclined  to 
find  traces  of  the  use  of  certain  symbols  as  representatives  of 
definite  sounds,  and  thus  be  truly  phonetic. 


364 


MAN'S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


comes  frequently  made,  in  time  comes  to  be  represented 
by  but  a  few  lines  of  the  original  picture,  and  these 
highly  conventional.  Such  a  character  would  in  time 
pass  through  the  stage  of  being  an  actual  picture  ( pic - 
tograph)  and  become  a  symbol  or  sign  ( ideograph ), 
meaningless  to  anyone  ignorant  of  the  past  history 
through  which  this  symbol  has  gone. 

Still  another  principle  may  be  considered  in  connec¬ 
tion  with  the  writings  of  North  American  Indians,  and 
that  is  the  high  development  of  the  gesture  language. 
This  consists  of  an  almost  countless  number  of  positions 
and  actions  of  the  arms  and  hands,  by  means  of  which  an 
elaborate  and  often  detailed  conversation  may  be  carried 
on  by  parties  at  a  distance ;  and  since  the  signs  were 
the  same  over  a  wide  area,  and  among  different  tribes, 
this  form  of  language  could  be  used  equally  well  where 
the  spoken  tongues  of  the  two  parties  were  mutually 
incomprehensible.  If,  now,  an  Indian  attempted  to 
record  certain  definite  ideas  upon  a  stone  or  piece  of 
leather,  it  would  often  occur  to  him  to  make  a  picture, 
not  of  the  idea  itself,  but  of  the  particular  gesture  of 
arms  and  hands  which  gave  everywhere  the  same  idea, 
and  there  would  thus  arise  a  character  which,  even  while 
still  in  the  picture  stage,  would  convey  no  meaning  to  a 
European  scholar. 

The  above  principles  may  be  illustrated,  and  the 
psychology  of  Indian  writing  be  explained,  by  a  few 
illustrations  taken  from  two  common  forms  of  native 
literature,  winter-counts  and  mnemonic  songs.  The  for¬ 
mer,  kept  by  the  wise  men  of  the  tribe,  were  a  sort  of 
calendar  to  record  the  tribal  annals,  and  in  the  case  of  a 
man  who  began  as  a  young  man,  or  whose  memory  was 


PREHISTORY  OF  THE  TWO  AMERICAS  365 

to  be  trusted,  and  who  eventually  lived  to  a  ripe  old 
age,  might  extend  over  a  long  period.  As  the  years  had 
no  consecutive  numbers,  and  dated  from  no  definite 
event,  they  were  designated,  in  the  mind  of  the  recorder, 
by  the  characteristics  of  each  winter,  or  by  some  marked 
event  that  took  place  during  this  season,  and  these  char¬ 
acteristics  were  recorded,  usually  upon  the  inner  side  of 
a  tanned  buffalo  hide,  by  means  of  symbols. 

In  spite  of  the  strongly  individual,  and  often  local, 
nature  of  such  records,  one  made  by  a  man  of  influence 
would  be  known  to  the  Indians  over  a  large  territory, 
and  used  by  them  as  a  calendar.  Thus  the  winter-count 
of  Lone-Dog,  which  extended  over  seventy-one  winters, 
beginning  with  that  of  1800-1801,  “was  known  to  a  large 
portion  of  the  Dakota  people.  ’  ’ 1  This  particular  record 
is  painted  upon  a  buffalo  skin,  with  the  symbols  placed 
in  the  form  of  a  spiral,  beginning  at  the  center ;  and  as 
usual,  each  symbol  represents  a  winter,  and  records  an 
event  by  which  it  was  rendered  memorable.  Thus,  for 
the  first  winter  (1801-1802),  the  symbol  given  means 
“thirty  Dakotas  were  killed  by  Crow  Indians.”  There 
is  here  no  sign  for  Crows,  which  is  intended  to  be  remem¬ 
bered,  but  a  long  black  mark  always  signifies  the  death 
of  a  Dakota.  The  sign  for  the  second  winter  signifies 
“Many  died  of  smallpox,”  and  is  a  sufficient  record  of 
the  disease,  especially  in  the  natural  colors,  with  the 
blotches  in  red,  but  gives  no  symbol  for  ‘  ‘  many,  ’  ’  which 

1  Col.  Garrick  Mallery,  “Picture  Writing  of  the  American 
Indians.”  BM.  of  Ethnol.,  10th  Ann.  Rept.,  1888-89,  p.  266  seq. 
This  work,  which  occupies  an  entire  volume,  is  of  the  greatest 
importance,  for  the  subject  of  Indian  inscriptions  of  all  sorts. 
Lone-Dog’s  buffalo  robe,  with  the  winter-count  painted  upon  it, 
is  here  given  in  color. 


366 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


again  is  to  be  remembered.  The  horseshoe  for  the  third 
winter  signifies  “A  Dakota  stole  horses  with  shoes  on/’ 
and  the  fourth  winter,  “They  stole  some  curly  horses 
from  the  Crows,”  is  for  them  sufficiently  indicated  by 
a  horse  covered  with  black  spots. 

Often,  however,  the  symbol  was  more  obscure,  as  in 
the  symbol  for  the  winter  of  1810-11,  “Black-stone  made 
medicine.”  For  this  one  must  first  know  that  a  buffalo’s 
head  is  very  important  in  the  “making  of  medicine,” 


pig  92. _ a  “winter-count,”  or  Indian  calendar,  which  has  a  separate  sign  for 

“  each  winter,  recording  some  signal  event  that,  to  the  maker  of  the  count, 
has  seemed  of  sufficient  importance  to  be  used  to  designate  that  particular 
season.  Thig  is  a  fragment  of  the  winter-count  of  Lone-Dog,  a  Dakota  Indian. 
The  original  was  painted  in  a  spiral  upon  the  inside  of  a  buffalo-hide.  The 
figure  is  explained  further  in  the  text.  (After  Mallory.) 

i.e.,  the  conducting  of  important  incantations,  and  then 
must  recognize  as  such  the  curious  object  attached  in  an 
inverted  position  to  the  head  of  the  medicine  man. 
Lone-Dog,  as  it  seemed,  used  no  designations  to  mark 
the  various  men  who  appeared  in  his  inscription,  but  in 
certain  other  winter-counts  that  was  done  by  attaching 
a  symbol  representing  the  name  to  the  head  of  the 
figure. 

The  winter,  as  a  whole,  when  spoken  of,  was  desig- 


PREHISTORY  OF  THE  TWO  AMERICAS 


367 


nated  throughout  the  area  which  employed  a  certain 
winter-count  by  a  compound  word  giving  the  character¬ 
istic  of  that  season.  Thus,  in  the  winter  count  of  Bat- 
tiste  Good,  a  Boule  Dakota,  which  included  almost  the 
entire  eighteenth  and  nineteenth  centuries,  and  natu¬ 
rally  required  several  successive  annalists,  the  sjunbols 
for  the  first  ten  winters  were  to  be  read  as  follows : 

1701- 02  The-three-killed-who-went-fishing  winter 

1702- 03  Camped-cutting-the-ice-through  winter 

1703- 04  The-burying  winter 

1704- 05  Killed -fif teen-Pa wnees-who-came-to-fight  winter 

1705- 06  They-eame-and-killed-seven-Dakotas  winter 

1706- 07  Killed-the-Gros-Ventre-with-snow-shoes-on  win¬ 

ter 

1708-09  Brought-home-Omaha-horses  winter 

These  are  hardly  to  be  designated  as  “the  annals  of  a 
quiet  life!”  On  the  contrary,  the  hardships  of  primi¬ 
tive  life  are  frequently  but  too  evident,  as  in  1720-21, 
“Three-lodges-starved-to-death  winter,”  or  in  1722-23 
‘ ‘  Deep  -  snow  -  and  -  only-tops-of-lodges-visible  winter.  ’ ’ 
These  events  were  occasionally  interspersed  with  a 
thrilling  encounter,  like  the  somewhat  unchivalrous  one 
of  1729-30,  “Killed-the-Pawnees-encamped-alone-with- 
their-wives  winter,”  or  that  of  1773-74,  the  “Killed- 
two-Pawnee-boys-while-playing  winter.”  The  winter  of 
1791-92  was  hardly  an  exciting  one,  the  most  noted 
event  being  recorded  in  the  title,  “  Saw-a-white-woman 
winter.” 

A  mnemonic  song  was  inscribed,  usually  upon  a  scroll 
of  birch  bark,  and  was  used  by  the  priests  during  their 
elaborate  ceremonies  as  an  aid  to  the  memory.  The  rit¬ 
ual  was,  of  course,  carefully  memorized,  but  upon  the 


368 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


document  in  question  a  symbol  stood  for  each  line,  and 
suggested  its  meaning.  It  was  thus  much  as  though  a 
child,  who  was  to  recite  at  a  public  gathering  some  well- 
known  poem,  should  aid  his  memory  as  to  both  the 
sequence  and  the  contents  of  each  stanza,  by  drawing  a 
little  picture  illustrating  them  in  order,  and  should  hold 
it  before  him  when  reciting.  Thus  in  a  certain  chant 
of  the  Ojibwa  (Chippewa)  Indians,  at  a  certain  point  in 
the  ceremony,  the  shaman  says: 

‘  ‘  When  I  come  out  the  sky  becomes  clear, 

The  spirit  has  given  me  power  to  see. 

I  brought  the  medicine  to  bring  life. 

I,  too,  see  how  much  there  is. 

I  am  going  to  the  medicine  lodge 
I  take  life  from  the  sky. 

Let  us  talk  to  one  another 

The  spirit  is  in  my  body,  my  friend.’ ’ 

As  he  says  this,  he  looks  at  a  certain  part  of  his  scroll 
of  bark,  upon  which  are  painted  the  following  eight 
pictures,  each  illustrative  of  one  of  the  above  lines.  The 
first  of  these  is  a  sacred  otter  skin,  the  use  of  which 
brings  a  clear  sky.  In  the  second  the  priest  is  seated 
upon  a  mountain,  communing  with  the  god  Manido.  The 
third  represents  the  thunder  bird  flying  up  and  entering 
the  sky,  not  a  very  obvious  connection  with  the  lines  to 
be  remembered,  and  the  fourth  is  still  more  obscure,  but 
suggests  again  the  idea  of  seeing  from  a  mountain.  The 
fifth  is  a  leg  going  to  the  lodge,  and  in  the  sixth  an  arm 
is  reaching  up  toward  a  sacred  shell,  while  the  myste¬ 
rious  power  of  life  is  shown  by  a  zigzag  line,  perhaps 
suggestive  of  the  lightning.  No.  7  is  obvious,  if  we 
understand  by  the  circles  simply  the  location  of  the  two 


sented  here  is  explained  in  the  text.  (After  Mallory.) 


370 


MAN'S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


speakers,  and  in  No.  8  the  spirit,  by  means  of  these  same 
wavy  lines,  is  entering  the  head  of  the  priest. 

It  is  through  the  study  of  such  inscriptions,  the  mean¬ 
ing  of  which  is  still  remembered  by  certain  individ¬ 
uals,  that  one  may  at  least  get  an  idea  that  the  various 
petroglyphs — although  perhaps  their  original  interpre¬ 
tation  may  never  he  recovered — may  yet  have  had  an 
actual  and  very  definite  meaning  for  the  people  for 
whom  they  were  originally  carved.  Often,  indeed, 
where  the  pictographic  character  of  the  inscriptions  is 
still  preserved,  they  seem  to  tell  a  definite  story,  with 
numerous  details ;  in  other  cases  the  pictures  have  given 
place  to  idiographs,  and  the  meaning  is  correspondingly 
obscured.1 

Geographically,  pictographs  are  spread  over  both 
Americas.  They  are  reported,  sometimes  in  consider¬ 
able  numbers,  from  Canada,  from  nearly  every  state  of 
the  Union,  from  Mexico,  and  the  republics  of  South 
America;  also  from  the  West  Indies.  In  most  localities, 
they  are  crudely  conceived  and  roughly  executed,  as  in 
those  here  figured,  but  in  association  with  the  higher 
civilization  of  tropical  America,  especially  that  of  the 
Mayas,  they  developed,  on  the  one  hand,  into  decorative 


1  Some  extremely  interesting  attempts  at  the  interpretation  of 
certain  pictographs  found  in  Rhode  Island  have  recently  ap¬ 
peared  ^  from  the  pen  of  Professor  E.  B.  Delabarre.  One  treats 
of  an  inscription  on  a  stone  axe,  possibly  once  a  signed  pos¬ 
session  of  the  renowned  King  Philip ;  the  other  a  rock  carving 
interpreted  by  the  aid  of  the  phonetic  alphabet  of  George 
Guest,  a  Cherokee,  but  given  in  the  Wampanoag  language. 
R.  I.  Hist.  Soc.  Coll.,  Jan.,  1920.  A  small  boulder,  covered 
with  inscriptions,  a  typical  pictograpli,  from  Wrentham,  Mass., 
was  described  by  the  present  author  in  the  American  Anthro¬ 
pologist,  Vol.  13,  1911,  p.  65-07.  It  is  the  picture  given  here. 
(Fig.  94). 


Fig.  94a. — Indian  inscription  carved  upon  a  small  boulder  of  trap  rock,  weighing  about  30  pounds,  and  found 
near  “Joe’s  Rock’’  in  West  Wrentham,  Mass.,  about  the  year  1840.  Two  photographs  of  the  boulder. 


372 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


figures  in  relief,  and  on  the  other,  into  a  system  of 
square  characters  known  as  glyphs ,  the  one  leading 
toward  pictorial  art,  the  other  toward  a  more  definite 
form  of  writing.  These  two  forms  occur  in  close  asso¬ 
ciation  over  most  of  the  available  surfaces  of  the  tem¬ 
ples  and  palaces,  and  are  especially  abundant  upon  the 
isolated  steles  or  columns.  These  inscriptions  and  fig¬ 
ures  carved  in  relief  upon  stone  edifices  are  almost  or 


Fig.  94b. — The  inscription  transcribed  directly  from  the  boulder  shown  in  Fig.  94a, 

made  by  the  author. 


quite  identical  with  those  found  in  the  few  parchment 
books  still  preserved,  the  codices,  and  in  attempting  an 
interpretation  the  two  may  thus  be  considered  together. 

73.  Central  American  Glyphs  and  Codices. — In 
studying  the  ruins  of  the  great  Maya-Quiche  civiliza¬ 
tion,  and  to  some  extent  also  that  of  the  Aztecs  to  the 
north  of  them,  one  is  struck  with  the  detailed  account 
of  the  people,  their  lives  and  their  customs,  depicted 


PREHISTORY  OF  THE  TWO  AMERICAS  373 

in  their  sculpture.  Everywhere,  upon  every  available 
place,  lintels,  side-walls,  and  even,  in  some  cases,  the 
flights  of  steps,  the  surfaces  are  covered  either  with 
reliefs,  representing  priests,  gods,  conquerors,  suppli¬ 
ants,  and  beneficiaries,  or  with  rows  of  grotesque  char¬ 
acters  called  glyphs ,  arranged  in  squares  and  undoubt¬ 
edly  forming  some  sort  of  inscription.  Especially  pro¬ 
fuse  are  the  carvings  upon  the  isolated  monuments,  or 
stela ,  which  were  evidently  mortuary  and  commem¬ 
orative  in  character,  and  set  forth  the  mighty  deeds  and 
great  wisdom  of  ancient  leaders. 

Yet,  as  the  extant  ruins  are  those  of  temples,  palaces, 
and  public  squares,  while  the  simple  bamboo  huts  of  the 
people  have  perished,  so  also  do  these  unsculptured  rec¬ 
ords  concern  themselves  mainly  with  the  gods  and  great 
human  personages,  while  we  catch  only  an  occasional 
glimpse  of  the  rank  and  file  mainly  in  the  guise  of  sup¬ 
pliants  or  sacrificial  victims.  The  Maya  civilization  was 
a  complete  hierarchy,  as  splendid  as  that  of  ancient 
Egypt,  and  the  stone  records  show  noted  priests  resplen¬ 
dent  with  decorations  and  clad  in  costly  robes,  yet  too 
often  with  cringing  suppliants  at  their  feet.  Thus,  at 
Yaxchilan  (Usumatsintla  valley,  South  Mexico),  series 
of  monumental  stelas  encircle  the  temples,  and  present 
two  flat  sides  for  reliefs :  the  one  turned  toward  the 
temple  displays  the  figure  of  a  god,  the  other  that  of  a 
priest  or  warrior,  without  much  doubt  the  personage  for 
whom  the  monument  was  erected.  Before  each  side  was 
usually  an  altar,  and  as  similar  altars  are  pictured  upon 
the  reliefs,  in  association  with  human  victims,  there  is 
little  room  for  doubt  that  the  real  ones  were  employed, 
at  least  occasionally,  for  the  same  purpose. 


Fig.  95.— Stele  from  Quirigua,  covered  with  glyphs.  (After  Morley.) 


PREHISTORY  OF  THE  TWO  AMERICAS 


Often,  too  ,  the  priests  bear  idols  or  other  sacred 
objects  in  their  hands,  the  latter  suggestively  similar  to 
the  “medicine  bundle”  of  many  North  American  tribes, 
used  in  their  frequent  ceremonials.  An  object  of  great 
reverence  singularly  enough,  was  the  cross,  of  quite  the 
same  proportions  as  the  usual  Christian  emblem,  but 
with  a  tuft  of  plumes,  or  perhaps  conventionalized 
branches,  growing  from  the  top  of  the  itpright.  This 
emblem  is  frequently  seen  in  the  hands  of  the  priest, 
who  grasps  it  by  the  upright,  below  the  cross  bar,  and 
is  so  suggestive  of  Christian  rites,  especially  when  thus 
grasped,  that  an  early  connection  with  Christianity 
might  seem  at  first  glance  almost  proved.  Yet,  on  the 
other  hand,  this  emblem  is  not  unlike  those  used  in 
Indian  ceremonials  at  the  present  time,  and  must  of 
course  be  considered  as  having  arisen  independently  of 
Christianity.  At  least  one  monument,  too,  gives  a  sly 
hint  of  the  origin  of  the  conventional  deities,  at  least  of 
their  apparition  among  men,  for  it  reveals  such  a  god, 
with  the  robes  of  dignity  and  all  the  emblems  and  sym¬ 
bols,  in  the  act  of  removing  a  fierce-looking,  quite  impos¬ 
sible  and  grotesque  mask,  and  revealing  behind  it  an 
ordinary  human  face,  strikingly  like  that  of  a  Maya 
priest. 

The  glyphs,  square  in  outline,  are  placed  in  rows, 
either  horizontal  or  vertical,  and  occupy  at  times  the 
entire  surface  of  a  lintel  or  side  of  a  stela ;  at  others 
they  fill  the  otherwise  plain  background  left  around  and 
between  the  figures.  Each  glyph  is  a  complex  and  intri¬ 
cate  carving,  sometimes  extremely  so,  in  which  are 
embodied  grotesque  human  profiles,  arms,  and  hands; 
writhing  serpents ;  conventionalized  figures,  circular, 


A  B 

Fig.  96. — Outlines  of  glyphs  from  Palenque. 

(a)  From  the  temple  of  the  Foliated  Cross,  (b)  From  the 
temple  of  the  Sun.  (After  Morley.) 


PREHISTORY  OF  THE  TWO  AMERICAS 


377 


oval,  or  elongated — the  whole  presenting  such  a  bewil¬ 
derment  of  scrolls  and  curves  that  one  looks  in  vain  for 
the  exact  repetition  of  a  single  character.1 

“The  first  real  advance  in  interpreting  the  Maya  writ¬ 
ing  seems  to  have  been  made  by  Professor  Ernst  Forste- 
mann  of  the  Royal  Library  of  Dresden,  who  in  the 
decade  from  1880-1890  published  a  number  of  studies 
on  a  Maya  hieroglyphic  manuscript  in  the  Royal  Library 
at  Dresden.  Using  Landa’s  values  for  the  day  and 
month  signs,  Forstemann  finally  worked  out  the  basic 
principles  of  Maya  chronology,  and  in  1887  he  an¬ 
nounced  the  fundamental  discovery  that  the  long  num¬ 
bers  of  the  Dresden  Codex  designate  particular  days  in 
Maya  history,  and  are  all  counted  from  the  same  start¬ 
ing  point,  a  sort  of  Maya  Birth  of  Christ  as  it  were.” 

Mr.  Joseph  Thompson  Goodman,  “after  twelve  years 
of  patient  laborious  research  gradually  won  his  way  into 
the  general  meaning  of  the  Maya  writing  and  demon¬ 
strated  that  at  least  one-lialf  of  its  two  hundred  odd 
characters  deal  with  the  counting  of  time  in  one  phase 
or  another,  i.e.,  chronological  and  astronomical  data  ex¬ 
pressed  in  an  arithmetic  system  and  notation  of  great 
ingenuity  and  exceeding  accuracy.”2 

There  still  remains  a  large  mass  of  glyphs  which  are 
neither  calendric  nor  astronomical  in  meaning,  and,  as 


1  For  suggestions  for  the  interpretation  of  the  glyphs,  cf. 
Thomas,  “Mayan  Calendar  Systems.”  Part  I,  Ann.  Rep.,  B.  of 
Ethnol,  Vol.  19,  Part  2,  1897-98;  Part  II,  Ann.  Rep.,  B.  of 
Ethnol.,  Vol.  22,  Part  1,  1900-01.  Bulletin  No.  28  of  the  Bureau 
of  Ethnology  (1904)  on  “Mexican  Antiquities,”  is  practically 
filled  with  papers  on  the  glyphs  and  their  possible  meanings  by 
Forstermann  and  Seler,  the  founders  of  the  study.  A  more 
recent  work,  giving  the  results  of  our  knowledge  up  to  1915, 
is  that  of  Sylvanus  Griswold  Morley,  published  as  Bulletin  57 
of  the  Bureau  of  Ethnology,  Washington,  1915,  and  entitled 
“An  Introduction  to  the  Study  of  Maya  Hieroglyphics.” 

2  The  two  above  quotations  are  by  Sylvanus  Griswold  Morley, 
in  Amer.  Anthropol.,  Vol.  21,  1919,  p.  443. 


378 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


they  follow  a  given  date,  may  well  he  the  details  of  what 
happened  upon  this  date. 

Although  but  little  progress  has  yet  been  made  to¬ 
ward  an  interpretation  of  this  extraordinary  method  of 
recording  thought,  a  few  points  have  become  fairly  well 
established  and  should  be  kept  in  mind. 

1.  The  inscriptions  are  mainly  calendar  records  of 
the  passage  of  time,  the  enumeration  of  the  years  as 
related  to  certain  great  events.  In  this  way  they  may 
be  perhaps  extensions  of  the  “winter-count”  system  ex¬ 
plained  a  few  pages  back.  As  such  glyphs  must  consist 
largely  of  numerals,  perhaps  also  of  symbols  which  stand 
for  the  names  of  noted  personages  or  for  the  gods,  and 
as  these  are  probably  not  phonetic,  there  is  little  likeli¬ 
hood  that  the  personal  names  may  ever  be  recovered. 

2.  Each  elemental  picture  used  for  the  purpose  of  ex¬ 
pressing  a  definite  idea  possesses  but  one  essential  char¬ 
acteristic,  often  a  single  line  or  curve,  while  all  the  rest 
may  be  varied  in  accordance  with  the  ability  or  caprice 
of  an  individual  writer  or  carver.  Thus  the  profile  heads 
appear  to  be  mostly  digits,  in  which,  not  the  expression, 
or  any  especial  characteristic  of  the  face,  determines  the 
meaning,  but  some  little  point,  like  the  cross  over  the 
eye,  or  a  plug  through  the  ear.1 

As  a  suggestion  of  the  way  in  which  these  Maya  in¬ 
scriptions  might  read,  if  they  could  be  interpreted  as 
was  doubtless  done  by  their  contemporaries,  who  remem¬ 
bered  the  arbitrary  meaning  of  numerous  signs,  we  still 
have  a  few  Mexican  annals,  written  down  in  Spanish 
at  the  time  of  the  conquest,  or  immediately  after.  Such, 


1  After  Morley.  p.  97. 


PREHISTORY  OF  THE  TWO  AMERICAS 


for  example,  is  the  “Cakchiguel  Calendar,”  which, 
although  employing  a  calendar  system  a  little  different 
from  that  of  the  Mayas,  may  yet  be  taken  as  an  example 
of  the  style  of  these  annals.  Quotations  from  this  are 
as  follows : 

“The  day  of  the  revolt  was  appointed  by  this  chief, 
Cay  Hunahpu,  and  on  this  day,  11th  Ah,  the  revolt 
broke  out.” 

“One  year  less  ten  days  after  the  revolt  was  hanged 
the  chief  orator  Ahmoxnay  on  the  day  11th  Akbal.” 

“The  day  8  Ah  completed  the  14th  year  after  the 
revolt. 

The  day  5  Ah  completed  the  15th  year  after  the  revolt. 

The  day  2  Ah  completed  the  16th  year  after  the  revolt. 

The  day  12  Ah  completed  the  17th  year  after  the 
revolt. 

The  day  9  Ah  completed  the  18th  year  after  the  revolt. 

On  the  day  3  Caok  the  doves  passed  over  the  city  of 
Iximche,  .  .  .  100  days  after  the  doves  had  been  seen 
the  locusts  came  ...  on  the  day  lg.  ” 

“On  the  10th  Ah  was  completed  the  35th  year  after 
the  revolt.  Forty  days  were  lacking  to  complete  three 
years  from  the  date  of  the  submission  of  the  kings,  when 
Belehe  Qat  died  ...  on  the  7th  Quell.”1 

The  Mexican  manuscript  books,  or  codices,  are  of  the 
same  sort  described  by  the  early  Spanish  explorers,  and 
were  destroyed  by  thousands  during  the  fierce  religious 
propaganda  conducted  by  the  Jesuit  missionaries.  A 
very  few  of  these  survive  in  American  and  European 
museums,  and  have  been  the  subject  of  much  study  and 
research.2 

a  Quoted  from  the  translation  by  Brinton,  1885.  “The  Annals 
of  the  Cakehiquels,”  by  Cyrus  Thomas,  in  22nd  Ann.  Rep.,  B. 
Of  Eth.,  1900-1901.  pp.  275-277. 

2  Cf.  the  facsimiles  of  the  various  codices  published  at  the 
expense  of  the  Due  de  Loubet,  and  explained  in  detail  by  Dr. 


380 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


These  manuscripts  were  written  upon  long  strips  of 
sheepskin,  made  by  piecing  a  number  (15  to  20)  of  sep¬ 
arate  pieces  together.  Instead  of  being  rolled,  they  are 
folded  back  and  forth,  and  bear  a  thin  board  at  each 
end,  so  placed  that  when  the  folding  is  complete  the 
two  boards  coincide  and  form  the  covers.  The  surface 
of  the  skin  is  covered  by  a  very  fine  stucco,  and  upon 
this  surface  the  pictures  and  symbols  are  painted  in 
bright  colors.  The  few  extant  codices  have  survived  as 
if  by  miracle,  and  have  run  a  hazard.  Thus  the  Codex 
Borgia,  now  in  the  Vatican  Library,  belonged  to  the 
Italian  family  of  the  Giustiniani.  In  the  seventeenth 
century  it  was  given  to  some  children  by  -servants,  un¬ 
der  the  impression  that  it  was  a  book  of  comic  pictures, 
and  was  rescued  from  them  only  after  considerable  muti¬ 
lation  had  taken  place.  Through  Cardinal  Staphano 
Borgia  it  came  eventually  to  the  Vatican.  The  Dresden 
Codex  can  be  traced  back  only  to  1739,  when  it  was  dis¬ 
covered  at  Vienna.  It  had  been  probably  in  the  family 
of  some  Spaniard  who  had  traveled  in  Mexico.  Codex 
Vaticanus  No.  3773  reached  the  Vatican  Library  about 
the  year  1570,  but  its  earlier  history  is  wholly  unknown. 

Concerning  the  contents  and  meaning  of  these  remark¬ 
able  Mexican  books  there  seem  to  be  at  least  two  kinds : 
first,  annals,  like  the  carved  glyphs  of  the  Maya  ruins, 
and  second,  religious  formulations  concerning  the  gods, 
and  the  calendars,  used  for  purposes  of  divination  and 
for  casting  horoscopes.  The  first  sort,  to  which  the  Dres- 


Eduard  Seler ;  also  the  various  papers  on  Maya  and  Mexican 
calendar  systems,  numerals,  etc.  (in  Ann.  Rep.,  B.  of  Eth., 
3,  5,  16,  19,  22 ;  Bull,  of  Eth.  IS  and  Ann.  Rep.,  Smithsonian 
Inst.,  1903). 


PREHISTORY  OF  THE  TWO  AMERICAS  3S1 

den  Codex  belongs,  contains,  among  pictures  of  gods  with 
their  symbols,  characters  like  the  glyphs,  many  of  which 
may  be  read  as  numbers.  In  the  second  sort,  of  which 
both  Codex  Borgia  and  Codex  Vaticanus  3773  are  typi¬ 
cal  examples,  are  set  down  the  gods  ruling  the  days  and 
hours,  their  attributes  and  their  symbols,  together  with 
numerous  occult  relationships  between  them  and  various 
natural  objects.  They  usually  begin  with  the  “Tona- 
lamatl,”  or  the  twenty  daj^s  of  a  calendar  unit  (a 
month),  with  the  god  that  rules  over  each,  together  with 
his  symbols ;  this  section  is  followed  by  numerous  others 
of  similar  import,  such  as  “The  nine  lords  of  the  night 
hours.  ’  ’  “  The  five  and  twenty  divine  pairs.  ”  “  The  four 
times  five  guardians  of  the  Venus  Period,”  “The  five 
goddesses  of  the  West  and  the  five  gods  of  the  South,” 
and  so  on.  These  data  are  usually  in  pictures  alone, 
without  inscriptions,  and  have  been  interpreted  in  great 
part  through  knowledge  of  the  older  Mayan  and  Mexi¬ 
can  mythology,  as  recorded  by  the  Spaniards,  and  still 
recalled  in  fragments  by  the  living  descendants  of  the 
old  native  civilizations  themselves. 

A  certain  degree  of  correspondence  between  the 
codices  and  the  carved  inscriptions  upon  the  rock  ruins 
is  an  item  of  vast  importance  and  gives  us  the  hope  that 
by  the  use  of  both  sources  much  of  the  mystery  which  has 
always  surrounded  these  ancient  civilizations  may  be 
ultimately  explained. 

74.  Possible  Connection  Between  the  Civilization  of 
the  Eastern  and  Western  Worlds. — It  is  only  natural, 
in  studying  the  remains  of  the  civilization  devel¬ 
oped  in  Central  America,  with  its  highly  developed  hier¬ 
archy  and  its  extensive  ritual,  that  one  finds  constant 


3S2 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


similarities  or  coincidences  between  them  and  the  cults 
of  the  Old  World — Egypt,  Assyria,  Babylon,  or  early 
Greece — and  it  is  also  natural  that  numerous  theories 
should  arise  of  pre-columbian  connection  between  the 
two  hemispheres.  Especially  has  this  field  proved 
attractive  to  mystics  of  all  nations,  those  whose  natural 
impulses  prefer  the  mysterious  to  the  matter  of  fact. 
Such  students  find  without  difficulty  in  these  unknown 
and  imperfect  relies  of  an  involved  priestcraft  a  direct 
connection  with  mystic  rites  in  other  places  and  times. 

While,  however,  one  cannot  be  too  dogmatic,  it  is  at 
present  a  safe  point  to  remember  that  the  more  sober 
scholars  find  in  the  American  civilizations  nothing  which 
cannot  as  well  be  explained  through  a  development  in 
place,  without  the  aid  of  extraneous  influence.  Thus  in 
what  is  yet  known  of  the  archeology  of  the  New  World, 
neither  bones  nor  ruins,  neither  culture  deposits  nor 
artifacts,  give  any  definite  suggestion  of  anything  fur¬ 
ther  than  the  activities  of  an  homogeneous  race  of  peo¬ 
ple,  comparatively  late  comers,  who  found  their  way 
to  the  Western  World  a  few  thousand  years  ago,  when 
the  surface  of  the  land  was  about  as  at  present,  and  who, 
in  the  course  of  their  generally  nomadic  existence,  cov¬ 
ered  the  greater  part  of  both  continents  with  a  sparse 
population.  In  certain  spots  favored  by  the  climate, 
they  became  more  sedentary  and  developed  a  rather  high 
grade  of  civilization,  advancing  in  culture  to  a  grade 
corresponding  to  the  early  Cyprolithic  or  even  the  early 
Bronze  Age  of  Europe. 

The  region  of  the  Old  World  from  which  they  came, 
and  the  route  or  routes  by  which  they  attained  the 
American  continent  are  still  problems  not  definitely 


PREHISTORY  OF  THE  TWO  AMERICAS 


383 


solved,  but,  in  the  general  opinion  of  scholars  the  place 
of  origin  was  somewhere  in  northeastern  Asia,  and  the 
route  of  approach  was  either  by  the  Aleutian  Islands, 
across  Behring  Strait,  or  by  a  more  southern  route,  in¬ 
volving  a  longer  or  shorter  journey  by  sea.  The  fact 
that  the  inhabitants  of  both  Americas  were  ignorant  of 
sails  at  the  time  of  the  discovery  by  Europeans  shows 
that  any  journeys  by  water  must  have  been  made  in 
primitive  dugouts,  propelled  by  paddles  or  oars.  Con¬ 
fessedly  the  manner  by  which  the  ancestors  of  the  Amer¬ 
ican  Indians  arrived  in  the  New  World  is  still  obscure, 
but  the  idea  that  they,  like  the  late  arrivals  from 
Europe,  are  not  autochthonous  but  emigrants  from  the 
Eastern  Hemisphere,  is  opposed  to  no  definite  and  posi¬ 
tive  facts  and  is  quite  in  accord  with  the  known  data. 


CHAPTER.  YI 


KNOWN  TYPES  OF  PREHISTORIC  MAN 

Early  Speculations  and  Discoveries — The  Neandertal  Man 
(1850) — More  Individuals  of  the  Neandertal  Race;  the 
Two  Skeletons  of  the  Spy  Grotto  (1885-6) — The  Cannibal 
Feasts  at  Krapina  (1899-1905) — The  Young  Boy  in  the 
Cavern  of  LeMoustier  (1907) — The  Skeleton  of  La  Cha- 
pelle-aux-Saints  (1908)  ;  The  Most  Recently  Discovered  Re¬ 
mains  of  Homo  neandertalensis — Some  Ancient  Skulls  from 
Old  Collections,  with  Supposed  Affinities  to  Homo  nean¬ 
dertalensis —  The  Three  Quarternary  Races  of  Homo 
sapiens:  Cro  Magnon,  Grimaldi,  and  Aurignac — Paleolithic 
Human  Remains  of  Doubtful  Position,  but  Representing 
the  Modern  Species,  Homo  sapiens — Late  Paleolithic  In¬ 
terments  ;  the  First  Brachycephals — Early  European  Ape- 
Man  :  Homo  heidelbergensis  and  Eoanthropus  dcvwsoni — 
The  Javan  Ape-Man :  Pithecanthropus  erectus — Hesper- 
opitliecus  liaroldcooki — Speculations  Concerning  the  Pedi¬ 
gree  of  Modern  Man. 

75.  Early  Speculations  and  Discoveries. — To  races 
who  are  themselves  well  past  the  Stone  Age  the  chance 
discovery  of  definitely  shaped  instruments  of  flint  and 
other  stones  awakens  a  feeling  of  the  mysterious,  and 
these  objects  become  naturally  associated  with  such 
well-nigh  universal  myths  as  those  of  strife  in  heaven 
and  of  wars  among  the  gods,  especially  as  the  majority 
of  the  instruments  found  are  of  a  decidedly  warlike 
character.  Thus  in  the  eleventh  century  a  “heaven 
axe”  was  considered  a  suitable  gift  to  pass  between  great 
emperors,  and  “even  as  late  as  the  seventeenth  century 
a.  French  ambassador  brought  a  stone  hatchet,  which 

384 


KNOWN  TYPES  OF  PREHISTORIC  MAN 


385 


still  exists  in  the  museum  at  Nancy,  as  a  present  to  the 
Prince-Bishop  of  Verdun,  and  claimed  for  it  health- 
giving  virtues. 5,1  The  early  years  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  however,  began  to  dispel  the  mystery  surround¬ 
ing  such  objects,  for  travelers  like  Jussieu  and  Lafitau 
described  precisely  similar  implements  which  they  had 
seen  in  use  among  primitive  peoples  still  alive;  “also 
there  was  found  in  the  year  1715  in  the  heart  of  London 
(Gray’s  Inn  Lane)  a  large  pointed  weapon  of  black  flint 
...  in  contact  with  the  bones  of  an  elephant,  in  a 
gravel  bed.” 

Yet  instances  like  this  last,  so  wholly  at  variance  with 
the  teachings  and  ideas  of  the  times,  were  for  the  most 
part  disregarded,  and,  although  such  cases  were  few  and 
far  between,  they  were  bound  to  multiply.  Thus,  in 
the  year  1800,  John  Frere  found  at  considerable  depth 
in  the  clay  beds  of  Hoxne,  in  Norfolkshire,  crude  flint 
implements,  which  could  not  have  been  introduced  there 
but  must  have  been  built  into  the  deposit  during  its 
formation.  Still  better  testimony  to  the  existence  of 
prehistoric  man  in  Britain  came  from  the  investigation 
of  a  cavern  near  Torquay,  in  Devonshire,  commonly 
known  as  “Kent’s  Hole,”  the  initial  exploration  of 
which  began  in  1825  by  the  work  of  Rev.  Mr.  McEnery, 
a  Roman  Catholic  priest.  He  found  here  “in  red  loam 
covered  with  stalagamite,  not  only  bones  of  the  mam¬ 
moth,  tichorrhine  rhinoceros,  cavebear,  and  other  mam¬ 
malia,  but  several  remarkable  flint  tools,  some  of  which 

1  Andrew  Dixon  White,  in  the  “History  of  the  Warfare  of 
Science  with  Theology.”  Appleton’s,  New  York,  1896,  Vol. 
1,  pp.  266-267.  From  this  source  also  is  taken  the  list  of  early 
discoveries  of  the  remains  of  prehistoric  man  which  immedi¬ 
ately  follows. 


MAX’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


386 

he  supposed  to  be  of  great  antiquity.”1  It  is  always 
to  be  regretted  that  the  discoverer  kept  bis  notes  in 
manuscript  and  never  published  the  detailed  results 
of  his  investigation. 

Almost  simultaneously  with  the  first  investigation  of 
Kent  ’s  Hole  by  McEnery  (1823)  ancient  human  bones 
were  found  by  Boue  deep  in  the  alluvial  deposits  of  the 
Tthine,  under  circumstances  that  showed  them  to  have 
been  contemporaneous  with  the  formation  of  the  deposit, 
but  this  discovery  was  not  especially  to  the  taste  of 
Cuvier,  to  whom  the  bones  were  brought,  and  the  find 
was  virtually  suppressed. 

But  such  suppression  can  be  but  temporary  and  local, 
and,  once  men’s  attention  was  called  to  the  possi¬ 
bility  of  such  discovery,  no  matter  what  their  teachings 
or  tendencies,  new  reports  of  similar  finds  came  thick 
and  fast,  and  in  many  parts  of  Europe.  “In  182$ 
Tournal,  of  Narbonne,  discovered  in  the  neighboring 
cavern  of  Bize  specimens  of  human  industry,  with  a 
fragment  of  a  human  skeleton,  among  bones  of  extinct 
animals.”  2  In  1829  came  the  investigation  of  the  caves 
of  Gard,  near  the  former  one,  by  Christol ;  in  1833  that 
of  the  caverns  of  Engis,  Engihoul,  and  many  others  in 
Belgium  by  Schmerling;  and  in  1840  a  renewed  and 
careful  study  of  Kent  ’s  Hole  by  Godwin  Austin.  In 
these  researches  human  bones  were  frequently  found ; 
for  instance,  there  was  obtained  at  Engis  the  cranial 
portion  of  a  skull,  and  at  La  Naulette  a  jaw,  which  ex¬ 
cited  special  interest.  Later  investigation  has  resulted 
in  a  lessened  interest  in  the  skull  from  Engis,  but  the 

1  Sir  Charles  Lyell,  “Antiquity  of  Man,”  London,  1873,  p.  98. 

2  Andrew  D.  White,  loc,  cit.,  p.  270. 


KNOWN  TYPES  OF  PREHISTORIC  MAX 


3S7 


La  Naulette  jaw  is  chinless,  and  may  be  brought  into 
line  with  a  number  of  later  discoveries  to  be  consid¬ 
ered  elsewhere.  All  these  discoveries,  so  far  as  con¬ 
cerned  actual  skeletons,  were  soon  eclipsed  by  the  discov¬ 
ery  in  1856  on  German  soil,  but  near  the  Belgian  fron¬ 
tier,  of  the  famous  Neandertal  skeleton,  in  the  valley  of 
that  name,  near  Diisseldorf. 

76.  The  Neandertal  Man  (1856). — -“The  spot  is  a 
deep  and  narrow  ravine  about  seventy  English  miles 
northeast  of  the  region  of  the  Liege  caverns  (Engis,  etc.) 

.  .  .  and  close  to  the  village  and  railway  station  of 
Hoehdal  between  Diisseldorf  and  Elberfeld.  The  cave 
occurs  in  the  precipitous  southern  or  left  side  of  the 
winding  ravine,  about  sixty  feet  above  the  stream,  and 
a  hundred  feet  below  the  top  of  the  cliff.  ’  ’ 1 

The  cave  was  a  narrow  fissure  or  cleft,  with  an  open¬ 
ing,  as  stated  by  Lyell,  sixty  feet  up  the  steep  face  of 
the  cliff.  Here,  when  first  examined  by  Dr.  Fuhlrott 2 
of  the  neighboring  city  of  Elberfeld,  the  cave  expanded 
from  the  mouth  into  a  small  room,  seven  feet  wide  and 
fifteen  deep,  and  high  enough  to  allow  him  to  stand  up¬ 
right.  The  deposit  upon  the  bottom  was  composed  of  a 
loam  or  mud,  ‘'mixed  with  rounded  fragments  of  chert, 


1  Sir  Charles  Lyell,  loc.  cit.,  p.  80.  Lyell  visited  the  spot  in 
1860,  in  company  with  the  discoverer,  I  >r.  Fuhlrott,  who  brought 
with  him  the  original  skull.  In  the  four  years  since  the  dis¬ 
covery  the  work  of  quarrying  the  stone  from  the  face  of  the 
cliff  had  made  profound  changes,  and  the  site  has  since  then 
been  entirely  obliterated.  We  have  thus  only  the  verbatim 
descriptions  of  the  few  savants  acquainted  with  the  place.  The 
cave  in  question  bore  the  name  of  the  “Feldliofner  Grotte.” 
Ly ell's  figure  of  it  is  given  elsewhere  in  this  work  (Fig.  0, 
p.  50). 

2  Fuhlrott,  “Per  Fossile  Menscli  aus  dem  Neandertal.”  Puis- 
berg,  1865. 


3S8 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


and  was  very  similar  in  composition  to  that  covering 
the  general  surface  of  that  region.  ’  7 1  In  this  deposit 
was  found  the  skeleton  of  a  man,  which  presented  a 
number  of  surprising  characters;  but,  although  it  was 
probably  complete  and  in  a  good  state  of  preservation 
when  uncovered,  the  discovery  was  made  by  the  work¬ 
men  engaged  in  quarrying  out  the  stone,  and  they  had 
taken  the  skeleton  out  before  any  scientific  man  arrived. 
When  Dr.  Fuhlrott  arrived  on  the  spot  he  learned  that 
only  the  skull  and  some  of  the  larger  bones  had  been 
saved,  and  he  succeeded  in  securing  only  the  following: 
the  cranial  portion  of  the  skull,  without  trace  of  face; 
both  femora ;  the  righ  clavicle,  scapula,  humerus,  ulna, 
and  radius ;  the  left  humerus  and  ulna ;  the  left  os  coxae, 
and  five  rib  fragments.  The  most  of  these  were  in 
fairly  complete  condition,  but  the  right  scapula,  left 
humerus,  and  the  hip  bone  were  deficient. 

It  was  also  unfortunate  that  the  relations  of  the 
cavern  and  the  deposit  were  such  as  not  to  allow  an 
exact,  or  even  approximate,  estimate  of  age.  The  de¬ 
posit,  which  showed  no  trace  of  stalagmite,  may  pos¬ 
sibly  have  been  washed  down  into  the  cavern  through 
the  fissure  which,  extending  obliquely  downward  for  a 
distance  of  a  hundred  feet  or  more,  connects  the  cav¬ 
ern  with  the  surface  of  the  upper  level,  and  if  so,  the 
skeleton  enclosed  within  it  probably  came  by  the  same 
route.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  more  likely  that  the 
deposit  was  washed  into  the  floor  of  the  cave  by  the 
spring  overflows  of  the  river  Diissel  at  the  time  when 
:t  flowed  at  the  level  of  the  mouth,  and  before  its  action 


1  C.  Lyell,  loc.  cit.,  p.  62. 


KNOWN  TYPES  OF  PREHISTORIC  MAN  389 

had  cut  out  the  final  sixty  feet  of  the  ravine.  In  this 
latter  case  either  the  body  may  have  been  brought  in 
with  the  water  or  else  the  man,  taking  shelter  within  the 
cave  may  have  died  there,  and  been  covered  up  by  sub¬ 
sequent  deposits.  In  the  former  case  both  the  deposit 
and  the  skeleton  brought  in  with  it  may  have  been  of 
any  age,  either  recent  or  old;  in  the  latter,  the  date  of 
both  must  have  been  very  remote.  Whether,  with  mod¬ 
ern  experience,  a  definite  date  could  have  been  assigned 
to  the  skeleton  of  the  Neandertal  cavern,  were  it  exca¬ 
vated  to-day,  cannot  now  be  stated ;  at  least  at  the  time 
no  certainty  was  felt  concerning  the  geological  proof 
of  age,  but  the  attention  was  riveted  rather  upon  the 
extraordinary  form  and  proportions  of  the  skeleton  itself. 

The  separate  bones  were  of  a  caliber  and  thickness 
unknown  in  men  of  the  modern  type,  and  the  cranium 
was  extremely  large  and  heavy.  At  the  same  time,  the 
limb  bones  were  about  the  same  length  as  those  of  a 
modern  man  of  rather  short  stature,  and  refuted  at  once 
all  notion  of  extraordinary  height.  The  muscular 
attachments  were  exceptionally  large  and  conspicuous, 
and  ‘  ‘  some  of  the  ribs,  also,  were  of  a  singularly  rounded 
shape  and  abrupt  curvature,  which  was  assumed  to 
indicate  great  power  in  the  thoracic  muscles.  ’  ’ 1  But  the 
most  singular  formation  was  exhibited  by  the  skull. 
Although  massive,  and  of  dimensions  exceeding  that  of 
the  average  of  any  living  race,  the  entire  cranial  roof 
was  depressed  below  that  of  the  lowest  savage,  and  the 
orbits  were  overhung  by  heavy  projecting  ridges.  Pro¬ 
fessor  Huxley  said,  “  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  .  .  . 


lLyell,  loc.  cit.,  p.  S3. 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


35)0 

this  skull  is  the  most  brutal  of  all  known  human  skulls, 
resembling  those  of  the  apes  not  only  in  the  prodigious 
development  of  the  superciliary  prominences  and  the 
forward  extension  of  the  orbits,  but  still  more  in  the 
depressed  form  of  the  brain-case,  in  the  straightness  of 
the  squamosal  suture,  and  in  the  complete  retreat  of 
the  occiput  forward  and  upward,  from  the  superior 
occipital  ridges.”  1 

Naturally,  opinions  were  much  divided  concerning  so 
remarkable  a  skeleton.  Those  who  considered  it  a  man 
had  to  agree  with  Professor  Huxley  that  it  was  “the 
most  pithecoid  of  human  crania  yet  discovered. 9  9  Others 
considered  it  not  a  man  at  all  but  an  ape,  or  perhaps  an 
individual  which  happened  to  show  an  extraordinary 
amount  of  reversion.  The  most  prominent  of  these  latter 
was  Rudolf  Virchow,  the  great  pathologist,  who  unfor- 
fortunately  expressed  as  his  official  opinion  that  the 
bones  were  not  normal  and  were  probably  those  of  a 
congenital  idiot !  2  At  a  later  time  he  doubted  the  geo¬ 
logical  age  of  the  bones  and  suggested  that  they  prob¬ 
ably  belonged  to  the  Merovingian  period,  or  might  even 
have  been  those  of  a  Cossack  who  perished  in  the  Na¬ 
poleonic  wars  !3 

On  the  other  hand  Professor  Schaffhausen,  who  pub¬ 
lished  the  first  memoir  on  the  subject,,4  considered  the 

1  Quoted  by  Lyell,  Toe.  cit..  p.  80. 

2  R.  Virchow.  “TJntersuchung  des  Neanderthalschadels,”  Ber¬ 
liner  Gesellsch.  fur  Anthropol.  Ethnol.  und  Urgeschichte,  1872 ; 
also,  Archiv  fur  Anthropol.,  Bd.  VI,  1873. 

3  Cf.  the  review  by  Klaatsch  in  Anat.  Ergebnisse,  Bd.  IX, 
1899,  p.  425. 

4  Schaffhausen,  “Zur  Kenntniss  der  altesten  Rassenschadel.” 
Muller’s  Arch.,  1858.  A  translation  of  this  review  by  Busk, 
with  some  notes  of  his  own.  appeared  in  England  in  the  Nat. 
Hist.  Review,  No.  2,  April,  1861. 


KNOWN  TYPES  OF  PREHISTORIC  MAN 


391 


skeleton  that  of  a  normal  individual,  though  of  a  race 
hitherto  unknown.  The  depression  of  the  forehead  was  a 
natural  character,  not  the  result  of  any  artificial  deforma¬ 
tion  such  as  is  frequently  practised  by  primitive  peoples. 

77.  More  Individuals  of  the  Neandertal  Race;  the 
Tivo  Skeletons  from  the  Spy  Grotto  (1886). — For  thirty 
years  after  its  discovery  the  Neandertal  skeleton  was 
destined  to  remain  unique,  and  in  spite  of  the  opinions 
of  Huxley,  Schaffhausen  and  others,  to  the  effect  that  it 
was  a  normal  specimen  of  a  race,  or  even  a  species,  more 
ape-like  than  any  yet  known ;  in  spite  also  of  the  mani¬ 
fest  desire  at  that  very  time  to  furnish  a  spectacular 
proof  of  human  evolution  by  presenting  something  like 
the  “ Missing  Link”  of  popular  demand,  still  the  un¬ 
qualified  statement  of  so  great  an  authority  as  Virchow, 
and  the  acceptance  of  it  by  a  few  such  men  as  Johannes 
Ranke,  naturally  dissuaded  anatomists  from  carrying 
on  further  researches  in  the  matter,  and  the  bones  lay 
accumulating  dust  upon  a  shelf  in  the  Museum  of  the 
University  of  Bonn.  This  attitude  was,  however, 
changed  at  once  by  the  fortunate  discovery  in  the  years 
1885  and  1886  of  the  skeletons  of  two  more  individuals 
with  characters  practically  identical  with  that  from  the 
Neandertal,  and  presenting  a  few  more  parts,  not  found 
in  the  Neandertal  specimen,  notably  the  mandible,  and 
a  portion  of  the  maxilla.1 


1  First  announcement:  de  Puydt  and  Lohest,  in  Ann.  Soc. 
Biol.  Belgique,  1886. 

Definite  paper:  Fraipont  and  Lohest,  “La  race  humaine  de 
Neanderthal  ou  de  Canstadt  en  Belgique.  Reclierches  ethno- 
graphiques  sur  des  ossements  humains,  decou  verts  dans  depots 
quaternaires  d’une  grotte  a  Spy  et  determination  de  leur  age 
geologique.”  Arch,  de  Biol.,  1887,  T.  VII,  pp.  587-757  (with 
four  plates). 


Fig.  97.— The  two  crania  from  the  Spy  grotto,  in  Belgium.  Drawn  from  casts.  Spy  II  is  rather  small 
for  skulls  of  this  race,  and  is  probably  female.  It  is  also  broader  than  Spy  I.  The  length  and 
breadth  measurements  of  the  two  are  respectively  145/201  and  196/154,  which  give  the  length-breadth 
indices  as  72.1  and  78.06. 


KNOWN  TYPES  OF  PREHISTORIC  MAN 


393 


This  discovery  was  made  in  the  grotto  of  Spy,  near 
Namur,  in  Belgium,  by  MM.  Marcel  de  Puydt  and  Max 
Lohest,  but  the  two  associated  with  themselves  M.  Frai- 
pont,  the  colleague  of  Lohest  at  the  University  of  Liege. 
The  bones  were  preserved  in  this  latter  institution. 
Here,  contrary  to  the  case  of  the  Neandertal  skeleton, 
the  excavation  was  made  by  scientific  specialists,  and 
every  detail  of  the  site,  such  as  position,  associations, 
and  so  on,  was  accurately  observed.  In  the  place  where 
the  skeletons  lay,  rather  across  the  mouth  of  the  cave 
than  within  it,  a  cross  section  of  the  deposit  presented 
three  layers :  an  upper  one,  containing  worked  flints  of 
the  Mousterian  and  Solutrean  types,  a  middle  layer, 
containing  flints  of  the  Montaiglian  (or  Aurignacian) 
type,  and  a  bottom  layer,  without  doubt  Mousterian.  In 
all  three  layers  bones  of  the  mammoth  were  found,  and 
in  the  two  lower  ones  those  of  the  Rhinoceros  tichor- 
rhinus  occurred  also.  The  skeletons  lay  directly  upon 
the  lowest  layer,  firmly  imbedded  in  a  breccia  which 
ran  all  through  the  middle  layer,  and  resisted  the  stroke 
of  the  pick.  There  was  felt  absolutely  no  doubt  on  the 
part  of  the  discoverers  that  the  skeletons  were  contem¬ 
poraneous  with  the  deposits,  that  is,  with  the  culture  and 
fauna  represented  there,  but  there  was  room  for  dis¬ 
cussion  as  to  whether  the  men  had  simply  died  on  the 
spot,  resting  on  the  lower  layer,  or  whether  there  had 
been  an  intentional  interment  while  the  second  layer 
was  being  deposited,  although  the  discoverers  inclined 
to  the  first  view.  The  two  skeletons  lay  about  2.5  meters 
from  each  other,  one  of  them  across  the  axis  of  the 
grotto,  resting  upon  the  side,  and  with  the  hand  placed 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


«°)94 

against  the  lower  jaw.  The  position  of  the  other  was 
not  determined. 

Here,  then,  was  an  absolute  proof  of  the  existence  in 
Europe,  contemporaneously  with  the  mammoth  and 
woolly  rhinoceros,  of  a  low  type  of  man,  more  bestial 
in  appearance  than  any  race  now  living;  the  men  asso¬ 
ciated  with  the  Mousterian  culture.  The  bones  were, 
moreover,  identical  with  those  from  the  Neandertal  cav¬ 
ern,  thus  forever  disproving  the  contention  of  Rudolf 
Virchow,  supported  by  Johannes  Ranke,  that  the  latter 
bones  were  pathological,  and  probably  belonged  to  an 
idiot.  The  Spy  skeletons  were  somewhat  more  complete 
than  was  the  Neandertal,  and  supplied  among  other 
parts,  a  nearly  complete  mandible  and  maxilla,  with 
teeth.  The  mandible  was  chinless  like  that  of  La  Nau- 
lette,  that  is,  although  unusually  broad  and  heavy  in  the 
symphysial  region,  the  profile  outline  of  the  jaw  drops 
downward  or  even  a  little  backward  from  the  base  of 
the  alveolar  region,  as  in  the  simian  apes,  without  a 
trace  of  the  mental  prominence,  or  chin,  which  charac¬ 
terizes  even  the  lowest  of  modern  men.  The  other  ape¬ 
like  characters,  such  as  the  heavy  and  projecting  supra¬ 
orbital  ridges,  the  retreating  forehead,  the  lowness  of 
the  cranial  dome,  and  lastly  a  marked  tibial  retroversion, 
preventing  the  legs  from  becoming  perfectly  straight, 
are  alike  in  all  three  skeletons  in  question,  and  together 
make  up  a  picture  of  a  being  sufficiently  unlike  any 
modern  race  to  form  a  new  species,  Homo  Neanderta- 
lensis ,  named  from  the  locality  of  the  type  sneeimen, 

78.  The  Cannibal  Feasts  at  Krapina  (1899-1905). — 
Since  the  two  sites  which  had  hitherto  yielded  remains 
of  this  primitive  type  of  man  were  located  near  together 


KNOWN  TYPES  OF  PREHISTORIC  MAN 


395 


in  northwestern  Europe,  the  next  discovery  of  similar 
remains  from  near  the  southeastern  corner  of  the  con¬ 
tinent  came  as  a  surprise.  This  time  it  was  in  the  little 
town  of  Ivrapina  in  Croatia,  almost  on  the  southern 
boundary  of  Hungary,  where  a  deposit  of  diluvial  (qua¬ 
ternary)  age  had  been  opened  up,  and  where,  in  1899, 
Professor  Gorjanovic-Kramberger,  from,  the  neighbor¬ 
ing  University  of  Agram,  found  the  first  of  the  series 
of  human  bones  destined  to  make  the  site  famous.1 

The  site,  in  its  original  condition,  was  a  shallow  niche 
excavated  by  natural  forces  in  a  nearly  white  Miocene 
conglomerate.  This  niche,  perhaps  fifty  feet  wide  and 
half  as  deep,  possessed  a  fairly  level  floor,  at  the  outer 
limit  of  which,  a  few  feet  deeper,  flowed  a  small  brook  or 
creek.  Occasional  inundations  of  the  brook  at  high  water 
covered  the  floor  with  deposits  of  sand  and  mud,  and  a 
layer  or  two  of  pebbles,  and  within  this  were  buried  the 
shells  of  fresh-water  mollusks  and  the  bones  of  the 
beaver.  This  floor,  beside  the  brook,  formed  an  ideal 
camp-site  for  man,  and  here  he  left,  not  only  his  crude 
flint  implements,  but  his  hearths,  constructed  of  stones, 
his  piles  of  ashes,  and  the  bones  of  the  animals  brought 
there  for  food,  and  split  for  marrow,  as  with  primitive 
peoples  everywhere.  But  here,  among  the  victims,  were 
plentifully  scattered  the  bones  of  men,  broken  for  mar¬ 
row  and  occasionally  calcined  by  the  heat,  too  evident 

1  Gorjanovic-Kramberger,  Karl.  “Der  diluviale  Mensch  von 
Krapina  in  Kroatien ;  ein  Beitrag  zur  Paheanthropologie.” 
Publ.  in  a  series  by  Walkoff;  Studien  uber  die  Entwickelung- 
mechanik  des  Primatenskeletes,  4°,  pp.  59-277  (14  plates  and 
52  text  figures). 

An  excellent  resume  of  the  excavations  at  Krapina  is  given 
by  Obermaier  in  L’Anthropologie,  1905,  p.  13,  “Les  stations 
paleolithiques  de  Krapina.” 


396 


MAN'S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


witness  of  cannibalism.  In  the  intervals  of  human 
occupancy  the  conglomerate  from  the  walls  of  the  niche, 
as  indeed  continues  at  the  present  time,  loosened  and 
rattled  down  upon  the  floor,  covering  up  bones,  hearth, 
implements,  and  all  signs  of  human  activity,  so  that  each 
new  camping  party  would  live  on  the  top  of  the  previous 
deposit  without  disturbing  it.  In  this  way  there  suc¬ 
ceeded  one  another  no  less  than  nine  culture  layers,  each 
contributing  toward  the  filling  up  of  the  niche,  until, 
no  longer  of  value  as  a  shelter,  it  finally  disappeared 
entirely  and  the  site  presented  the  appearance  of  a 
smooth,  steep  hillside.  Meanwhile  the  brook,  the 
Krapinica,  cut  deeper  and  deeper  into  its  bed,  as 
the  floor  of  the  niche  rose,  so  that  during  the  human 
occupancy  it  was  no  longer  possible  for  the  brook  to 
inundate  the  cave,  while  it  became  constantly  more  of  a 
climb  for  the  men  wandering  along  the  brook  to  ascend 
to  the  floor  of  the  niche.  At  present  the  niche  lies  high 
up  on  the  side  of  a  ravine,  while  the  Krapinica  flows, 
a  small  stream  two  or  three  feet  wide,  seventy-five  feet 
below. 

The  scientific  excavation  of  this  site,  slow  and  difficult 
because  of  the  hard  nature  of  the  deposit,  continued 
nearly  every  summer  from  1899  to  1905,  and  ended  only 
with  the  complete  clearing  out  of  the  former  niche, 
leaving  nothing  further  to  be  done  here.  Each  of  the 
nine  layers  contained  fragmentary  human  bones,  and 
scattered  generally  through  them  all  were  artifacts  of 
the  Mousterian  and  Aurignacian  types,  as  well  as  the 
bones  of  Rhineroceros  merckii,  TJrsus  spelaeus,  Bos  primi- 
genius,  and  other  characteristic  Quaternary  animals. 

What  type  of  man  the  cannibals  themselves  may  have 


KNOWN  TYPES  OF  PREHISTORIC  MAN  397 

been  cannot  be  surely  known,  but  the  abundant  frag¬ 
ments  of  their  victims  show  in  every  feature  the  char¬ 
acteristics  of  the  skeletons  of  Spy  and  Neandertal,  and 
it  may  be  supposed,  with  some  degree  of  probability, 
that  the  eaters  were  of  the  same  race.  Certain  it  is  that 


Fig.  98. — Site  of  the  excavation  at  Krapina  in  Croatia,  from  a  photograph  by 
H.  H.  and  I.  W.  Wilder.  This  figure  is  made  by  piecing  two  separate 
photographs  together,  and  although  they  do  not  exactly  match,  they  give  a 
good  idea  of  the  place.  Originally  the  site  was  a  level  shelf  in  the  side  of 
the  valley,  at  the  level  of  the  brook,  the  Krapinitza;  gradually  the  brook 
has  cut  deeper  and  deeper,  while  the  shelf  has  become  covered  up  by 
debris  that  has  rattled  down  from  above.  The  removal  of  the  debris  uncov¬ 
ered  no  less  than  nine  fire-sites,  each  with  the  remains  of  human  bones. 


the  culture  associated  with  the  hearths  was  no  higher 
than  that  of  the  Mousterian,  or  at  best,  Aurignacian, 
since  to  these  periods  belong  the  artifacts,  undoubtedly 
for  the  most  part  the  property  of  the  cannibals  rather 
than  the  victims,  and  in  at  least  one  discovery  since  then 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


similar  tools  have  been  found  in  close  association  with 
Homo  neandertalensis.  Among  the  fragments  occurred 
frontal  pieces  with  typical  supra-orbital  tori,  the  heavy 
ridges  so  long  commented  on  in  the  case  of  the  skeleton 
of  Neandertal ;  the  mandibles  were  chinless,  the  fore¬ 
heads  retreating,  and  the  cranial  dome  low.  It  is,  how¬ 
ever,  of  note  that  the  cranial  outlines  showed  the  pro¬ 
portions  of  brachycephalic  heads,  rather  than  the  marked 
dolichocephaly  of  the  western  specimens,  and  thus  sug¬ 
gest  a  differentiation  into  races,  somewhat  paralleling 
that  of  the  modern  species.1 2 

Even  among  the  Ivrapina  remains  themselves  there 
were  at  least  two  well-marked  varieties,  a  heavy  and 
robust  type,  and  a  light  and  graceful  one,  named  respec¬ 
tively  by  Gorjanovic-Kramberger  II.  primigenius /  var  ; 
spyensis  and  II.  primigenius,  var:  krapinensis.  Although 
well  seen  in  many  of  the  other  bones  the  characteristics 
of  the  two  varieties  are  especially  contrasted  in  the  man¬ 
dibles,  which  in  the  first  case  present  a  wide,  heavy 


1  Thus  in  the  case  of  the  skull  designated  as  “C,”  Gorjanovic- 
Kramberger,  by  methods  of  construction,  determines  the  length- 
breadth  measurements  as  ITS  and  149  mm.  which  gives  an 
index  of  S3.T.  This  may  he  compared  with  the  indices  of  the 
western  specimens;  Neandertal  147/199.5  =  73.6;  Spy  I  145/201 
=z  72.13 ;  and  Spy  II  154/196  —  78.6;  loc.  cit.,  p.  96.  “Krapina 
D,”  a  larger  individual  than  “C”  gives  the  figures  169/197.5 
=  85.8. 

2  The  German  anthropologists,  headed  by  Schwalbe,  who  first 
definitely  proved  the  Neandertal  type  of  man  to  belong  to  a 
distinct  species,  adopted  for  it  the  name  of  Homo  primigenius, 
originally  proposed  by  Wilser  in  1897.  The  type  had  long  been 
called,  however,  the  “Neandertal  man,”  and  King  in  1864,  and 
Cope  in  1893,  had  proposed  for  it  the  scientific  name  of  Homo 
neandertalensis.  Aside  from  priority  the  name  “primigenius” 
lost  its  meaning  with  the  discovery  of  the  Heidelberg  jaw, 
and  thus  from  all  reasons  the  name  neandertalensis  is  to  be 
preferred. 


KNOWN  TYPES  OF  PREHISTORIC  MAN 


399 


body  like  that  of  the  Spy  skeleton  No.  1,  while  in  the 
other  the  body  of  the  jaw  is  as  narrow  as  in  Homo 
sapiens ,  but  as  chinless  as  the  first.  Thus,  as  measured 
from  the  casts,  the  widths  of  the  jaw  of  Spy  I,  from  the 
alveolar  edge  to  the  mental  ridge,  in  the  median  line 
(symphysial  height)  1  is  34.5  mm;  in  a  heavy  Krapina 
jaw,  37.0,  and  in  a  light  Krapina  specimen  but  29,  about 
an  average  for  H.  sapiens.  Upon  the  side,  beneath  the 
middle  of  the  second  molar  tooth  the  respective  mea¬ 
surements  are  31.5;  33.5;  and  27.  The  three  jaws  here 
compared  are  all  of  them  adults,  not  senile,  and  in  gen¬ 
eral  outline  are  of  about  the  same  size. 

79.  The  Young  Boy  in  the  Cavern  of  Le  Moustier 
(1907). — Hard  upon  the  completion  of  the  excavation 
of  the  niche  at  Krapina  came  the  unearthing  of  a  skele¬ 
ton  of  Homo  neandertalensis  at  the  classic  French  sta¬ 
tion  of  Le  Moustier,  in  the  alley  of  Vezere.2  The  pre¬ 
historic  station  here  consists  of  four  separate  rock  shel¬ 
ters,  “ abris  sous  roclies,”  opening  from  as  many  terraces 
of  a  steep  mountain  slope,  almost  in  a  perpendicular 
line,  one  above  another.  Of  these  the  three  upper  ones 
had  long  been  the  site  of  archeological  labors  of  much 


1  As  measured  by  Fraipont  this  jaw  was  38  mm.  wide; 
but  Schoetensack,  who  remeasured  it  in  connection  with  his 
work  on  the  Heidelberg  jaw,  could  not  possibly  make  it  over 
35  mm. 

2  H.  Klaatseli  und  O.  Hauser,  “Homo  mousteriensis  liauseri. 
Ein  altdiluvialer  Skeletfund  im  Departement  Dordogne  und 
seine  Zugehorigkeit  zuin  Neandertaltypus.”  Arch,  fur  Antho- 
pol.,  N.  F.,  P>d.  VII,  1908.  The  discovery  is  reported  also  by 
Klaatsch  in  the  Anat.  Ergebnisse  (Merkel  und  Bonnet),  Bel. 
XVII,  1907,  pp.  448-457. 

H.  Klaatsch,  “Die  Fortschritte  der  Lehre  von  der  Neander- 
talrasse.”  In  Merkel  u.  Bonnet’s  Ergebn.  der  Anat.  u.  Ent- 
wickel.,  Bd.  17,  1907,  pp.  431-402.  Six  plates.  (This  includes 
a  review  and  criticism  of  the  paper  of  Sollas.) 


400 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  TAST 


importance,  and  have  furnished  both  name  and  type  of 
artifact  to  the  Mousterian  Period  of  the  Paleolithic  Age. 
The  lowest  shelter,  however,  had  long  been  concealed 
under  the  foundation  of  a  barn,  the  removal  of  which 
at  about  this  time  gave  Dr.  Otto  Hauser,  a  Swiss  arche¬ 
ologist,  the  opportunity  to  excavate.  But  ten  meters 
distant  from  the  site  rendered  classic  by  the  labors  of 
Lartet  and  Christy  in  1863,  the  shelter  yielded  an  abun¬ 
dance  of  artifacts,  including  coups  de  poing  of  the 
Acheulian  type  and  typical  Mousterian  implements. 
Here  in  March,  1907,  Hauser  first  came  upon  the  skele¬ 
ton  in  question,  but  took  the  precaution  to  cover  it  up 
again,  and  postponed  further  work  until  the  10th  of  the 
next  month,  when  he  continued  the  excavation  in  the 
presence  of  witnesses,  who  made  affidavit  that  the  de¬ 
posit  about  and  above  the  skeleton  was  undisturbed. 
After  this  he  again  paused,  and  the  final  removal  of 
the  bones  was  made  the  following  August,  in  the  pres¬ 
ence  and  with  the  help  of  a  number  of  noted  anthro¬ 
pologists,  assembled  for  the  purpose. 

The  skeleton  proved  to  be  that  of  a  young  person, 
probably  male,  with  a  massive  head  and  heavy  jaws,  and 
short  limbs.  The  leg  bones  were  exceptionally  short 
(femur  380,  tibia  90  mm.,  max.  length),  but  as  shown 
by  the  separate  ephyses,  indicated  mainly  that  the  adult 
length  had  not  been  reached.  The  stature,  as  based  upon 
the  leg  bones,  was  estimated  at  approximately  1450- 
1500  mm.  The  teeth  of  both  jaws  were  well  preserved 
and  were  notably  large  and  heavy,  without  trace  of 
caries;  the  four  third  molars  were  still  under  the  gums. 
The  skull,  which  had  to  be  carefully  reconstructed  from 
literally  hundreds  cf  fragments,  exhibits  the  massive 


KNOWN  TYPES  OF  PREHISTORIC  MAN 


401 


proportions  characteristic  of  the  species  neandertalensis 
and  is  a  trifle  larger  than  either  one  of  the  Spy  skulls 
or  the  Neandertal,  but  a  slight  change  of  position  in  the 
fragments  might  vary  the  dimensions  by  several  milli¬ 
meters.  The  cast  of  the  reconstruction  by  Klaatsch 
is  206  mm.  in  maximum  length  and  156  or  more  in 
breadth,  but  these  figures  may  not  be  wholly  reliable. 
As  one  would  expect  in  an  adolescent  skull  such  fea¬ 
tures  as  the  supra-orbital  tori,  so  characteristic  of 
the  species,  are  not  strongly  expressed,  but  are  well 
indicated,  and  need  only  the  development  of  further 
growth. 

In  position  the  skeleton  lay  as  if  sleeping;  the  right 
side  of  the  skull  and  the  right  elbow  lay  upon  a  flat 
block  of  flint,  the  elbow  beneath  the  cheek,  as  if  the  head 
were  resting  upon  the  flexed  arm,  while  the  left  arm  was 
thrown  out  straight  forward.  At  or  near  the  place  for 
the  left  hand  was  found  a  perfect  Mousterian  axe,  of 
ovate  outline,  and  flat,  with  the  edge  running  entirely 
around.  Although,  in  a  deposit  abounding  in  artifacts, 
difficult  to  prove,  the  impression  was  given  to  the  exca¬ 
vators  that  the  axe  and  skeleton  had  been  originally 
associated,  and  that  the  body  of  the  young  boy  had  been 
carefully  placed  by  his  friends  in  the  position  found, 
with  his  axe  in  his  hand.  There  thus  comes  at  once  the 
impression  of  a  cult,  a  belief  in  a  life  after  death,  and 
at  the  least  the  affection  of  parents  or  friends ;  a  pleas¬ 
ing  contrast  to  the  many  and  repeated  cannibal  feasts 
at  Krapina.  The  study  of  Quaternary  man  has  hardly 
begun,  however,  and  the  discoveries  of  the  next  few 
years  may  be  expected  to  furnish  more  information,  not 
only  concerning  the  bodily  characteristics,  but  also  coh- 


402 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


cerning  the  mode  of  life  and  stage  of  culture  of  those 
remote  times. 

80.  The  Skeleton  of  La  Chapelle-aux-Saints  (1908). — 
Two  years  after  the  excavation  of  the  skeleton  at  Le 


Moustier,  and  before  the  final  results  of  this  find  had 
become  generally  disseminated,  came  the  news  of  the 
discovery,  in  a  neighboring  Department,  that  of  Correze, 
of  still  another  skeleton  of  Homo  neandertalensis ,  much 


KNOWN  TYPES  OF  PREHISTORIC  MAN 


403 


more  complete  than  any  previously  known.  The  dis¬ 
covery  was  made  in  a  little  grotto  near  the  village  of  La 
Chapelle-aux-Saints  by  two  young  priests,  their  younger 
brother,  and  a  friend.1  These  young  men,  the  MM. 
Bouysonnie  and  M.  Bardon,  had  excavated  and  explored 
this  grotto  for  some  time  previous,  and  had  collected 
from  the  culture  deposit  found  within  a  number  of 


Fig.  99b. — Cross  section  of  the  cave  at  La  Chapelle-aux-Saints,  taken  through 

the  line  CD  in  Fig.  99a. 


paleoliths  of  the  Mousterian  type,  together  with  the 
bones  of  the  animals  used  for  food.  In  thus  excavating 
they  revealed  in  section  a  depression  in  the  bed  rock  at 
the  bottom  of  the  deposit,  suggesting  a  grave,  and  while 
continuing  the  work  further  within  this,  without  espe¬ 
cial  care,  the  young  brother,  Paul,  found,  and  drew  out, 
a  humerus  fhat  was  unmistakably  human,  and  almost 
immediately  uncovered  a  cranium  with  neandertaloid 

1  Boussonie,  A.  et  J.,  et  Bardon,  L.,  “Decouverte  d’un  Squeb 
ette  humain  Monsterien  a  la  bouffia  de  la  Chapelle-aux-Saints 
(Correze).”  U Anthropologie,  T.  19,  1908,  pp.  513-518. 

M.  Boule,  “L’Homme  fossile  de  la  Capelle-aux-Saints.”  Ibid., 
pp.  519-525. 


404 


MAN'S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


characters.  Save  for  a  displacement  and  slight  distor¬ 
tion  of  the  parts  as  the  result  of  the  pressure  of  the 
deposit  accumulated  above  it,  the  skull  was  practically 
entire,  and  was  taken  up,  together  with  the  soil  about  it, 
in  one  piece.  The  other  bones  of  the  skeleton  were  then 
removed  with  apparently  as  much  care  as  could  well 
be  expected  of  four  young  men  not  trained  for  such 
work,  especially  as  they  found  themselves  “dans  lo 
necessite  de  nous  hater,  presses  par  le  temps  et  les  cir- 
constances”  ( loc .  cit.  p.  514).  Probably  the  expert 
excavators  from  Le  Moustier  would  have  been  able  to 
remove  this  skeleton  in  a  better  state  of  preservation, 
and,  through  the  employment  of  technical  methods,  and 
by  taking  several  days  for  the  work,  might  even  have 
gotten  it  out  practically  entire,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that 
the  young  men  found  that  the  bones  broke  “trop  souvent 
au  moindre  effort yet  the  work  was  done  most  con¬ 
scientiously,  and  represents  the  best  efforts  of  the  ex¬ 
cavators,  so  that  even  with  the  imperfections  which  a 
greater  technical  skill  might  have  obviated,  the  skeleton 
of  La  Chapelle-aux-Saints  is  by  far  the  best  and  most 
complete  specimen  of  Homo  neandertalensis  thus  far 
known. 

The  skull,  slightly  restored  in  places  by  M.  Boule,  to 
whom  the  young  men  sent  their  find,  reveals  for  the  first 
time  the  exact  lines  and  proportions  found  in  the  actual 
head  and  face  of  this  species.  Although  the  head  is  a 
little  larger  than  any  of  the  previous  ones  (max.  length 
208  mm;  max.  breadth  156),  the  stature,  as  well  as  can 
be  made  out  from  the  incomplete  leg-bones,  was  rather 
short,  not  above  1600  mm,  a  few  points  above  the  average 
given  for  1200  Japanese  soldiers  (1585  mm) .  The  femur 


Fig.  100. — Two  views  of  the  skull  of  La  Chapelle-aux-Saints:  A.  Fitted 
with  the  rightful  jaw,  but  with  the  teeth  and  alveoli  rejuvenated, 
as  the  actual  skull  was  senile.  B.  Fitted  with  the  jaw  from  the 
Sands  of  Mauer,  Homo  heidelbergensis,  to  show  that  this  latter 
type  may  not  have  been  so  very  unliae  the  Neanderthal  type.  (After 
Boule,  in  L’Anthropologie.) 


406 


MAN'S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


shows  a  marked  curvature,  and  the  axis  of  the  tibia  dis¬ 
plays  a  sharp  bend  near  the  proximal  end  (retrover¬ 
sion),  both  characters  quite  as  in  the  other  neanderta- 
lensis  specimens  and  hence  normal  specific  characters. 
Because  of  these  the  legs  “ avaient  normalement  une 
attitude  flechie  se  rapprochant  de  celles  des  Anthro- 
poides,  dont  la  plupart  out  aussi  des  femurs  tres  courbes 
et  des  tibias  tres  retroverses.” 1  The  fibula  was  of 
greater  caliber  than  in  modern  man,  as  indicated  by  the 
articular  surface  for  it  upon  the  distal  end  of  the  tibia, 
and  this,  together  with  numerous  indications  in  the. 
joints  of  the  tarsus,  suggests  an  habitual  inturning  of 
the  soles  and  the  necessity  of  resting  upon  the  outer 
edge  of  the  foot  when  walking,  again  a  decided  simian 
character. 

These  suggestions  of  a  body  well  adapted  for  a  life 
in  part  arboreal  are  further  corroborated  by  the  stout¬ 
ness  of  the  humeri  with  their  large  heads,  characters 
which  reveal  great  strength  in  the  shoulder  joints;  by 
the  strong  outward  curve  of  the  radius  which  broadens 
the  interosseous  space  and  membrane  and  increases  the 
surface  of  origin  for  the  flexor  muscles  of  the  fingers; 
and  again  by  the  few  extant  finger  bones  themselves, 
which  are  short  and  extremely  large  in  caliber.  The 
thumb  was  more  readily  opposable  than  in  modern  man, 
and  possessed  a  freer  motion.  Finally  the  enormous 
head,  resting  upon  an  extremely  short  neck,  was  carried 
far  forward,  as  in  the  large  man-apes,  a  character  indi¬ 
cated  by  the  shape  and  position  of  the  occipital  foramen, 

1 M.  Boule,  “L’Homme  fossile  cle  la  Chapelle-aux-Saints” 
(Second  article).  V Anthropologic,  T.  20,  1009,  pp.  257-271. 
The  quotation  is  found  on  p.  270. 


KNOWN  TYPES  OF  PREHISTORIC  MAN 


407 


elongated  anteroposteriorly  and  placed  farther  back  than 
in  the  modern  species. 

Yet,  in  spite  of  the  undeniably  simian  characters 
shown  in  the  bodily  frame  of  the  species  neandertalensis, 
there  was  here  as  in  Le  Moustier,  abundant  evidence  of 
an  intentional  interment,  with  some  care  in  the  dis¬ 
posal  of  the  body.  The  excavation  in  the  soil  under¬ 
lying  the  deposit  of  a  suitable  shape  and  size  for  the 
reception  of  a  body,  must  have  been  a  grave  dug  for 
the  purpose,  and  the  leg-bones  of  a  wild  ox,  found  in 
cJose  association  with  the  head,  were  in  all  likelihood 
placed  there  intentionally  to  supply  the  wants  of  the 
deceased.  A  more  positive  evidence  of  the  developing 
mentality  of  the  species  was  shown  later  in  a  most  con¬ 
vincing  way  by  MM.  Boule  and  Anthony,  who  suc¬ 
ceeded  in  making  an  intereranial  cast  of  the  brain,  in 
which  they  were  enabled  to  locate  and  study  a  number 
of  important  superficial  features.  These  features,  such 
as  the  fissures  and  convolutions,  showed  in  general  a  char¬ 
acter  intermediate  between  that  of  the  highest  apes  and 
modern  man,  as  shown  by  accurate  measurements,  and 
the  only  fair  conclusion  is  that  the  mental  characters 
were  also  intermediate.  “II  est  clone  probable  que 
V Homme  de  la  Correze  et  V Homme  de  Neanderthal  ne 
devaient  posseder  qu’un  psychisme  rudiment aire,  supe- 
rieur  certainement  a  celui  des  Anthropoides  actues,  mais 
inferieur  d  celui  de  n’wiporte  quelle  race  humaine 
actuelle.” 1  The  reduction  of  the  foot  of  the  third 
frontal  convolution  indicates,  if  not  the  actual  absence 

1  M.  Boule  et  R.  Anthony,  “L’Encephale  de  l’Homme  fossile 
de  la  Chapelle-aux-Saints.”  V Anthropologic,  T.  22,  1911,  pp. 
129-196  (26  figs.).  The  quotation  occurs  on  p.  194, 


40S 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


of  an  articulate  language,  at  least  the  existence  of  only 
a  very  rudimentary  one ;  the  slight  preponderance  of 
the  left  side  over  the  right  shows,  not  the  fully  devel¬ 
oped  right-handedness  of  modern  man,  but  only  the 
beginning  of  such  a  condition ;  and  thus  wherever  a 
physiological  or  psychic  character  can  be  interpreted 
from  a  supercial  anatomical  one,  the  result  of  the  ex¬ 
amination  shows  a  condition  somewhere  between  that 
of  the  apes  and  that  of  modern  man.  The  brain  of 
Homo  neanclertalensis  “  est  dejd  un  encephale  humaine 
par  Vabondance  de  sa  matiere  cerebale.  Mais  cette 
maiere  manque  encore  de  V organisation  superieure 
qui  caracterise  les  Hommes  actuel”  (loc.  cit.  last  sen¬ 
tence)  . 

81.  The  Most  Recently  Discovered  Remains  of  Homo 
N eandertalensis ;  1909-1911. — Since  the  discovery  and 
successful  excavation  of  the  skeleton  at  La  Cliapelle- 
aux-Saints  several  others  of  the  same  species  have  been 
found,  so  that  there  is  no  longer  any  doubt  concerning 
the  presence  of  this  type  of  man  in  western  Europe,  and 
no  considerable  gap  left  in  the  knowledge  of  his  bodily 
form. 

The  year  following  the  discovery  of  the  Neandertal 
skeleton  at  La  Chapelle-aux-Saints,  on  September  17, 
1909,  a  similar  skeleton  was  found  by  Capitan  and 
Pyronie  in  the  cavern  of  La  Ferrassie  in  the  Dordogne, 
near  the  famous  center  of  Les  Eyzies.  This  site,  which 
is  rich  in  artifacts  of  the  Paleolithic  Age,  from  the 
Acheulian  to  the  Aurignacian,  presents  definite  layers 
of  all  these  periods  in  succession,  and  the  skeleton  was 
found  in  the  lower  Mousterian,  resting  upon  the  sur¬ 
face  of  the  underlying  Acheulian.  As  this  was  not  an 


KNOWN  TYPES  OF  PREHISTORIC  MAN 


409 


intrusive  burial  of  a  later  date,  the  skeleton  is  precisely 
dated,  and  comes  definitely  from  the  lower  Mous- 
terian. 

It  was  that  of  a  male,  with  all  the  characters  of  the 
Neandertal  species.  It  was  lying  upon  its  back,  with  the 
legs  drawn  up  toward  the  pelvis,  with  the  face  turned 
a  little  toward  the  left,  and  with  the  mouth  widely 
open.  The  left  arm  was  lying  along  the  side  and  the 
right  arm  was  bent,  and  a  little  elevated.  There  were 
no  indications  of  intentional  burial,  other  than  the  fact 
that  it  had  not  been  disturbed  by  wild  beasts,  which 
points  either  to  some  sort  of  structure  originally  piled 
upon  it,  or  to  its  being  left  in  the  interior  of  the  cave 
during  a  continued  human  occupancy. 

On  September  of  the  following  year,  1910,  the  same 
investigators  found  a  second  skeleton  of  the  same  type 
and  period.  This  was  very  near  the  first ;  and  was  that 
of  a  small  female.  In  August,  1912,  some  remains  of 
children  were  found  at  the  same  place. 

Again,  about  a  year  from  the  discovery  of  the  second 
La  Ferrassie  skeleton,  on  September  18,  1911,  still 
another  skeleton  of  Homo  neandertal ensis  was  found  by 
Dr.  Henri-Martin  in  the  cave  of  La  Quina  (Charente), 
the  Department  adjoining  that  of  Dordogne  on  the  north¬ 
west,  and  near  the  type  station  of  Aurignac.  This  also 
lay  at  the  base  of  the  lower  Mousterian  deposit,  but  the 
parts  were  somewhat  dislocated,  and  the  general  impres¬ 
sion  was  given  that  the  body  had  been  long  macerated 
by  water,  and  had  finally  been  carried  into  the  cave  by 
an  overflow  of  the  adjoining  river,  which  buried  it  at  the 
same  time  in  sand.  This  skeleton,  probably  female, 
showed  separation  of  the  cranial  bones  at  the  sutures, 


410 


MAN'S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


evidently  due  to  the  maceration ;  yet  as  the  teeth,  which 
were  very  large  and  strong,  were  well  worn  on  the 
biting  surfaces,  the  individual  must  have  been  fully 
mature,  probably  from  twenty-five  to  thirty  years  of 
age. 

The  cranium,  as  is  usual  in  the  western  specimens  of 
this  ancient  species,  was  very  dolichocephalic,  and 
showed  an  index  of  65-68.  The  face  was  poorly  pre¬ 
served,  but  the  proportions  of  one  of  the  orbits  could 
be  partly  made  out.  The  left  ramus  of  the  jaw  was 
present,  and  showed  enormous  proportions,  as  in  the 
large  apes.  In  front  the  jaw  was  chinless,  and  typical 
for  the  species.  As  in  the  case  of  the  skull  of  La  Cha- 
pelle-aux-Saints,  an  endocranial  cast  was  made,  and 
this  showed  a  brain  of  similar  proportions  and  of  the 
same  low  type  as  the  other.  This  La  Quina  skeleton 
has  been  placed,  together  with  those  from  La  Ferrassie, 
and  La  Chapelle-aux-Saints,  in  the  Museum  d’Histoire 
Naturelle  in  Paris. 

Since  the  discovery  of  this  first  La  Quina  skeleton, 
numerous  other  Neandertal  skeletal  remains  have  been 
found  at  the  same  site,  until,  in  a  recent  article  ( Journ . 
Pliys.  Antlirop.  J an. -March,  1922)  MacCurdy  has  been 
able  to  enumerate  remains  of  some  twenty  individuals 
found  here  since  1911.  Perhaps  the  most  interesting 
find  is  that  of  a  child  of  this  same  race,  discovered  by 
Mme.  Henri-Martin  while  her  husband  was  away  at  the 
Avar.  This  skull  has  been  figured  in  L’Anthropologie, 
T.  31,  p.  331. 

The  Broken  Hill  skull  from  southern  Rhodesia,  South 
Africa,  is  the  latest  of  the  remains  of  the  Neandertal 


KNOWN  TYPES  OF  PREHISTORIC  MAN 


411 


race,  and  came  to  light  in  November,  1921. 1  This, 
although  a  near  relative  of  Homo  neandertalensis  of 
western  Europe,  stood  perfectly  erect,  as  is  seen  by  the 
position  of  the  foramen  magnum ;  also  the  face,  between 
the  nasal  cavity  and  the  mouth,  is  somewhat  longer  than 
in  the  neandertalensis.  Perhaps  the  most  sensational 
circumstance  about  this  find  is  that,  in  its  position  geo¬ 
logically  it  does  not  appear  to  be  very  old,  and  is  thought 
by  some  to  have  been  deposited  within  recent  times. 
Becoming  extinct  in  Europe  in  the  Middle  Paleozoic, 
the  Neandertal  man  may  have  continued  existence  in 
Africa  much  longer,  gaining  the  modifications  in  which 
it  differs  from  the  typical  neandertalensis,  and  contin¬ 
uing  its  existence  up  to  quite  modern  times.  Indeed,  it 
has  been  seriously  suggested,  although  improbable,  that 
somewhere  in  the  interior  of  the  continent  this  ancient 
type  is  still  alive,  and  may  be  found  by  some  fortunate 
explorer  in  the  flesh.  This  would  only  repeat  the  dis¬ 
covery  of  the  Okapi,  a  mammal  first  known  only  from 
its  fossil  bones  found  in  Europe,  but  afterwards  discov¬ 
ered  alive  in  Africa.  Surely,  “ ex  Africa  semper  quic- 
quid  novum.” 

82.  Some  Ancient  Skulls  from  Old  Collections,  with 
Supposed  Affinities  to  Homo  Neandertalensis. — In  the 
collection  of  the  Hof  museum  at  Stuttgart  there  is  a  frag¬ 
mentary  human  cranium  which  has  had  a  long  and 
curious  history.  Although  the  records  are  not  absolutely 
reliable,  it  is  supposed  to  have  been  one  of  the  objects 

1  The  first  announcement  of  this  discovery  appeared,  accom¬ 
panied  by  excellent  illustrations,  in  the  Illustrated  London 
News,  Nov.  19,  1921. 


412 


MAN'S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


exhumed  in  the  year  1700  in  the  neighboring  town  of 
Cannstatt,  along  with  the  bones  and  tusks  of  mammoths 
and  similar  remains  of  other  Quaternary  animals.  Over¬ 
looked  at  the  time,  it  was  first  described  and  figured  by 
Jaeger  in  1835,  who  noted  its  peculiar  shape,  especially 
the  low  forehead  and  the  prominent  superciliary  ridges, 
and  naturally,  after  the  discovery  of  the  Neandertal 
skull,  the  interest  in  this  skull  from  Cannstatt  became 
renewed.  It  was  referred  to  by  Fraas  in  1866  and  by 
Holder  in  1867,  and  in  1870  was  sent  to  Quatrefages, 
who,  with  his  colleague  Hamy,  was  then  at  work  upon 
the  “Crania  Ethnica, ”  which  appeared  in  1873.  These 
authors  also  recognized  a  close  similarity  between  the 
skulls  of  Cannstatt  and  Neandertal,  and  from  them 
established  a  primitive  human  race,  the  oldest  known,  to 
which  they  gave  the  name  of  the  “Cannstatt  race.”  It 
seemed  to  possess  the  characteristics,  now  so  well  known, 
of  the  Neandertal  skull :  the  exaggerated  superciliary 
ridges,  continued  across  the  glabelle  and  the  low  retreat¬ 
ing  forehead,  and  they  noted  also  an  extreme  length  for 
the  frontal  bone,  measured  over  the  outer  surface  from 
nasion  to  bregma.  While  others  had  already  begun  to 
speak  of  a  “  Neandertal  race,  ’  ’  these  authors  employed 
for  the  same  thing  the  name  of  the  prior  discovery,  as 
it  should  be  considered  the  type. 

Later  students  of  the  skull  from  Cannstatt,  however, 
noticed  that  the  characters  of  the  Neandertal  type,  now 
still  better  known  from  the  two  specimens  from  Spy, 
were  at  the  best  but  faintly  shown  by  it,  and  in  1906 
Schwalbe,  in  an  exhaustive  memoir,  at  once  historical 
and  anatomical,  removed  it  forever  from  the  Neandertal 
type,  and  showed  it  to  be  not  different  from  human  skulls 


KNOWN  TYPES  OF  PREHISTORIC  MAN 


413 


of  modern  times.1  Moreover,  the  data  concerning  the 
original  find  were  confusing  and  uncertain,  and  showed 
that  the  cranium,  and  also  several  clay  pots,  were  either 
the  results  of  a  late  intrusive  burial  in  the  Quaternary 
deposit,  or  were  from  an  ancient  cemetery  in  the  imme¬ 
diate  neighborhood.  Through  the  final  conclusion,  that 
the  Cannstatt  skull  was  in  no  way  different  from  recent 
skulls,  and  that  its  date  was  in  all  probability  no  older 
than  the  late  Roman  period,  or  that  of  the  still  later 
invasions,  this  once  celebrated  specimen  is  removed 
from  the  field  of  the  prehistoric.  Naturally  also  the 
term  “Cannstatt  race,”  as  the  designation  of  that  now 
known  as  “Neandertal”  from  the  name  of  the  type  spe¬ 
cimen,  Homo  neaderalensis,  is  no  longer  to  be  used. 

The  “Sudbury  calvaria,”  an  English  specimen,  is 
still  another  case  of  ancient  human  remains  excavated 
during  the  uncertain  period,  studied  casually  by  the 
authorities  of  the  time,  and  now  revived  and  critically 
examined  by  the  help  of  the  more  exact  methods  which 
the  research  of  the  last  few  years  has  developed.  It  was 
found  about  the  year  1864  in  an  alluvial  deposit  near 
Sudbury  in  Derbyshire,  associated  with  remains  of  Bos 
primi genius  and  Bos  longifrons ,  and  was  figured  and 
described  by  Edwin  Brown  in  the  Transactions  of  the 
Midland  Scientific  Association  for  the  Session  of  1864- 
1865.  In  1866  Huxley  described  the  skull,  under  the 
erroneous  name  of  “Ledbury,”  and  stated  that  “a  little 
flattening  and  elongation,  with  a  rather  greater  develop- 

1  <4.  Schwalbe.  “Das  Schadelf  ragmen  t  van  Cannstatt.”  The 
third  article  of  his  “Studien  zur  Vorgeschichte  des  Menschen,” 
published  as  a  “Sonderheft  to  the  Zeitschrift  fur  Morphologic 
und  Anthropologic,  1900,  pp.  1S3-22S  (one  plate  and  13  text 
figures) . 


414 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


ment  of  the  supraciliary  ridges,  would  convert  this  into 
the  nearest  likeness  to  the  Neandertal  skull  which  has  yet 
been  discovered.”  Since  the  writing  of  this  statement 
by  Huxley  the  skull  has  remained  unknown,  and  vir¬ 
tually  lost,  when,  very  recently,  the  English  anthro¬ 
pologist  Duckworth/  with  the  help  of  the  son  of  the  late 
Mr.  Edwin  Brown,  has  succeeded  in  finding  it  at  Sudbury 
Hall,  where  “for  forty-six  years  it  has  lain  on  a  table 
in  the  gallery.”  Thus  found  and  identified,  Dr.  Duck¬ 
worth  has  subjected  the  skull  to  a  careful  examination 
by  modern  methods,  as  a  result  of  which  it  is  shown  that, 
while  much  of  the  resemblance  to  Homo  neandertalensis 
is  superficial,  and  vanishes  upon  detailed  measurements, 
it  is  yet  extremely  primitive  for  Homo  sapiens ,  and 
belongs  in  that  category  of  intermediate  forms,  like  the 
skulls  of  Galley  Hill,  Brux  and  Briinn,  at  present  of 
uncertain  position,  and  with  an  assemblage  of  low  char¬ 
acters  which  are  never  found  in  combination  in  recent 
skulls. 

Still  another  English  specimen  is  the  “Gibraltar 
skull,”  in  the  Hunterian  Museum  of  the  Royal  College 
of  Surgeons  in  London,  which  has  recently  and  definitely 
been  recognized  as  a  typical  female  specimen  of  the 
species  neandertalensis.  This  skull  has  had  a  long  and 
curious  history,  involving  periods  of  interest  and  neg¬ 
lect,  and  the  inevitable  misunderstandings  of  the  early 
work  on  prehistoric  man. 

According  to  Keith,  who  has  worked  out  its  early  his¬ 
tory  (cf.  Nature,  Sept.  7,  1911),  the  first  mention  of  it  is 

1 W.  L.  H.  Duckworth,  “The  Sudbury  Calvaria :  a  revised  and 
extended  description.  Journal  of  Anal,  and  Physiol.,  July, 
1912,  pp.  328-349  (17  figures). 


KNOWN  TYPES  OF  PREHISTORIC  MAN 


415 


in  the  minutes  of  a  scientific  society  at  Gibraltar,  under 
the  date  of  March  3,  1848:  “  Presented,  a  Human  Skull 
from  Forbes  Quarry,  North  Front,  by  the  Secretary.” 
From  Gibraltar  the  skull  found  its  way  to  England, 
where  it  was  studied  by  George  Busk,  and  was  the  sub¬ 
ject  of  a  brilliant  and  humorous  letter  from  the  paleon¬ 
tologist  Falconer  to  Busk  (Aug.,  1864),  suggesting  for 
the  skull  the  name  “Homo:  var.  calpicus,  Calpe  being 
the  ancient  name  for  the  rock  of  Gibraltar.”  Fal¬ 
coner  called  the  skull  a  “priscan  pithocoid,”  and  both 
he  and  Busk  evidently  regarded  it  as  extremely  primi¬ 
tive. 

Concerning  the  deposit  in  which  this  specimen  was 
found,  or  the  surroundings  and  associated  objects,  unfor¬ 
tunately  nothing  is  known,  the  only  information  con¬ 
cerning  its  antecedents  being  the  note  concerning  it  in 
the  Museum  catalogue,  No.  371.  “A  mutilated  cranium 
remarkable  for  the  low,  retreating  forehead,  prominent 
supra-orbital  ridges,  and  peculiar  conformation  of  the 
maxillag. — From  a  quarry  behind  Forbes  Battery  in  the 
brecciated  talus  under  the  north  front  of  the  rock  of 
Gibraltar.  ’  ’ 

Some  few  years  after  the  correspondence  with  Fal¬ 
coner,  Busk  exhibited  this  skull  before  the  Anthropo¬ 
logical  Congress  held  at  Norwich  in  1869,  and  Huxley, 
who  saw  it  at  this  time,  spoke  of  its  primitive  character. 
In  the  same  year  also  the  skull  was  described  by  Broca, 
who  mentions  especially  the  great  size  of  the  orbits. 
From  this  time  on  the  Gibraltar  skull  excited  no  especial 
interest  until,  soon  after  the  discovery  of  the  Galley  Hill 
cranium  in  1888,  the  former  was  again  brought  to  light 
for  comparison,  and  placed  by  Macnamara  with  the 


416 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


newly  discovered  one  under  the  name  of  the  “  Galley 
Hill  group.” 

Through  subsequent  study  of  these  two  specimens  this 
enforced  alliance  has  now  been  broken,  and  the  skull 
from  Galley  Hill  has  been  referred  to  the  modern  spe¬ 
cies,  although  showing  certain  primitive  characters; 
while  the  one  from  Gibraltar  has  been  definitely  recog¬ 
nized  as  a  typical  female  of  Homo  neandertalensis.  This 
last  decision  was  rendered  positive  by  comparison  with 
the  skull  from  La  Chapelle-aux-Saints,  which  showed  an 
almost  perfect  face  of  this  species.  Allowing  for  sex 
differences,  the  skulls  compare  perfectly,  and  make  an 
excellent  pair  for  type  specimens  of  this  ancient  species. 

83.  The  Three  Quaternary  Races  of  Homo  Sapiens: 
Cro-Magnon,  Grimald,  and  Aurignac. — As  has  already 
been  shown,  the  excavation  of  such  skeletons  as  those 
of  Neandertal,  Spy,  Krapina,  Le  Moustier,  and  La 
Chapelle-aux-Saints  from  undisturbed  Quaternary 
deposits,  in  association  with  the  remains  of  a  typical 
diluvial  fauna,  such  as  the  mammoth,  cave-bear  and  rhi¬ 
noceros,  and  with  exclusive  Paleolithic  artifacts,  shows 
abundant  proof  of  the  existence  at  that  period  of  a  low¬ 
browed  human  species,  with  large  eyes  and  projecting 
jaws,  with  short,  curved  legs,  and  stout  arms  and  chest : 
a  form  showing  simian  resemblances  to  a  much  more 
marked  degree  than  are  seen  in  any  modern  race.  It  is 
also  certain,  by  means  of  the  same  definite  proofs,  the 
excavation  of  skeletons  in  undisturbed  deposits,  that  men 
of  the  modern  species,  Homo  sapiens,  differentiated  even 
into  several  distinct  races,  inhabited  southern  France  at 
least  at  the  same  remote  epoch,  probably  contempora¬ 
neously  with  the  first. 


KNOWN  TYPES  OF  PREHISTORIC  MAN 


417 


The  two  chief  sites  from  which  such  remains  have 
been  obtained  thus  far  are  (1)  the  cave,  or  abri-sous- 
roclie  of  Cro-Magnon,  at  Les  Eyzies,  in  the  Department 
Dordogne,  and  (2)  a  series  of  grottoes  upon  the  Riviera, 
almost  at  the  boundary  between  France  and  Italy,  where 
excavations  have  been  largely  carried  on  under  the  per¬ 
sonal  supervision  of  the  ruler  of  that  region,  Albert, 
Prince  of  Monaco.  The  skeletons  from  these  two  locali¬ 
ties  represent  two  distinct  races :  the  first,  the  ‘  ‘  Cro- 
Magnon  race,”  is  named  from  the  first  locality,  which 
has  thus  far  produced  only  this  type;  the  second,  the 
“ Grimaldi  race,”  is  negroid  in  character,  and  has  been 
found  in  the  site  at  Monaco,  in  association  with  the  first, 
which  is  identical  in  character  with  that  found  at  Cro- 
Magnon  itself.1 

The  name  ‘  ‘  Cro-Magnon  ”  is  given  to  a  small  rock 
shelter,  a  few  minutes  walk  northwest  of  the  village  of 
Les  Eyzies,  in  the  heart  of  the  cave  district  of  the  Vezere 
valley,  Departement  Dordogne,  southern  France.  It  was 
first  opened  up  in  1868,  during  the  building  of  a  railroad, 
and  five  skeletons  were  found  by  the  workmen.  Of  these, 
parts  of  four  were  rescued  by  M.  Lartet,  and  eventually 


1  For  accounts  of  the  skeletons  from  Cro-Magnon  and  vicinity, 
see :  Lartet,  “Une  Sepulture  des  Troglodytes  du  Perigord,”  Bull. 
Soc.  d’Anthrop.,  1868,  pp.  335-349.  Quatrefages  et  Hamy, 
“Crania  Ethnica,”  Paris,  1882. 

For  the  site  at  Monaco,  especially  the  Grimaldi  race,  see : 
Verneau,  in  V Anthropologic,  1902,  pp.  561-5S5 ;  and  1906,  pp. 
291-320.  The  last  paper  gives  a  review  of  the  excavations  at 
this  site,  since  the  beginning,  in  1872.  Boule,  in  V Antliropol- 
o</ie,  1906,  pp.  257-290.  The  paper  describes  the  geological  con¬ 
ditions  at  the  site. 

The  above  work  of  Verneau  and  Boule,  together  with  im¬ 
portant  papers  by  Villeneuve,  Cartailhac,  etc.,  is  given  in  a 
collection  edited  by  Albert,  Prince  of  Monaco,  entitled,  “Les 
Grottes  de  Grimaldi,”  publ.  1906. 


418 


MAN’S  rREIIISTORIC  TAST 


found  to  be  representatives  of  a  new  human  race.  Al¬ 
though  in  date  and  associations  belonging  to  the  Aurig- 
nacian  period  and  thus  still  Quaternary,  they  show  none 
of  the  conspicuous  characteristics  of  Homo  neandertalen- 
sis,  but  fall  quite  within  the  limits  of  proportions  of  the 
species  sapiens.  The  brows  lack  the  heavy  ridges ;  the 
orbits,  instead  of  being  large  and  round,  with  an  orbital 
index  of  96  or  thereabout,  are  extremely  narrow  (micro¬ 
seme)  ;  and  the  jaw  possesses  a  typical  chin,  with  the 
point  even  a  little  emphasized,  at  least  in  a  specimen  of 
advanced  age,  the  one  described  as  the  “  Vieillard.” 
Quite  unlike  H.  neandertalensis ,  the  race  of  Cro-Magnon 
was  of  very  large  stature,  often  considerably  over  six 
feet,1  and  the  heads  were  extremely  big,  even  exceeding 
those  of  large  men  of  the  present  time.  Thus,  while  it  is 


1  The  total  stature  of  typical  individuals  of  the  two  races, 
Neandertal  and  Cro-Magnon,  as  given  in  Osborn,  “Men  of  the 
Old  Stone  Age,”  p.  237  and  p.  295,  respectively,  is  as  follows : 
Neandertal  race: 

Neandertal  (Boule)  .  1550  mm.  (5  ft. 

Neandertal  (Manouvrier)  .  ^  1632  (5  ft. 

La  Cbapelle  (Boule)  . 1570  (5  ft. 

La  Chapelle  (Manouvrier)....  1611  (5ft. 

Spy  (Manouvrier)  .  1633  (5  ft. 

La  Ferrassie  I  (Manouvrier)  1657  (5  ft. 

La  Ferrassie  II .  1482  (4  ft. 

The  last  is  probably  a  female;  the  others  male. 


1  in.) 

4  in.) 
lin.) 

3  in.) 

4  in.) 

5  in.) 

10  in.) 

The  aver¬ 


age  of  the  male  Neandertal  individuals  is  1633  mm.  (5  ft.  4  in.). 

Cro-Magnon  race: 

Adult  males  of : 

Cavillon  .  1790  mm. 

Barma  Grande  II .  1820 

Baousso  da  Torre  II .  1850 

Barma  Grande  1 .  1930 

Grotte  des  Enfants .  1940 

Average  of  males :  1870  mm.  (6  ft.  1  in.) 

Woman  from  Cro-Magnon....  1S00  mm. 

Woman,  Barma  Grande .  1650 

Youth  of  15  yrs.,  Barma  Grande  1650 


(5  ft.  10  in.) 
(5  ft.  11  in.) 
(6  ft.  4  in.) 
(6  ft.  4  in.) 
(6  ft.  4  in.) 

(5  ft.  10  in.) 
(5  ft.  5  in.) 
(5ft.  Sin.) 


KNOWN  TYPES  OF  PREHISTORIC  MAN 


419 


unusual  in  modern  skulls  to  meet  with  one  having  a 
maximum  length  of  200  mm.,  or  over,  two  casts  from  the 
original  find,  that  of  the  “old  man,”  and  the  one  desig¬ 
nated  Cro-Magnon  II,  measure  in  length  respectively 
206  and  203.5.  In  this  connection  one  cannot  help  being 
reminded  of  the  enormous  heads  of  H.  neandertalensis, 
and  the  supposition  has  arisen  from  more  than  one  quar¬ 
ter  that  the  race  of  Cro-Magnon  is  a  hybrid  race,  the 
result  of  the  crossing  of  the  two  species.  When,  how¬ 
ever,  the  separate  features  of  these  large  skulls  be  con¬ 
sidered,  as  given  above,  they  are  seen  to  be  typical  of 
the  species  sapiens ,  with  no  suggestion  of  the  other 
species,  and  all  support  for  the  hypothesis  vanishes. 

As  in  all  of  the  types  of  early  man  of  either  species, 
unless,  possibly  in  certain  of  the  Krapina  specimens, 
the  Cro-Magnon  skulls  are  dolichocephalic,  the  index, 
according  to  Topinarcl  (La  Anthropologie,  1876,  p.  465), 
averaging  73.22.  In  the  ‘  ‘  Vieillard  ’  ’  with  a  total  breadth 
of  154  mm.  (cast),  the  index  is  74.7,  and  the  Cro- 
Magnon  II  (also  cast)  the  breadth  is  155  and  the  index 
is  76.1. 

Since  the  discovery  of  the  first  four  skeletons  in  the 
abri  of  Cro-Magnon,  a  number  of  others  with  the  same 
characteristics  and  from  the  same  period  have  been  found 
in  the  vicinity;  one  in  the  abri  of  Laugerie-basse  in  1872, 
one  in  the  abri  of  Raymonden  at  Chancelade  in  1888,  in 
the  grotto  of  Duruthy  at  Sores  (Dept.  Landes)  in 
1872-73,  and  in  the  grotto  of  Hoteaux  at  Rossilon  (Dept. 
Ain).  In  several  cases  the  occurrence  of  perforated 
shells  and  mammal  teeth  in  close  association  with  the 
bones  suggests  the  bodily  adornment,  in  true  primitive 
style,  with  necklaces,  bracelets,  and  girdles  formed  of 


420 


MAN'S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


Fig.  101.— Cro-Magnon  type  of  skeleton  from 
Bausse-Rousse,  near  Monaco.  (After  Verneau, 
in  L’Anthropologie.) 


these  objects;  and 
there  are  occasional 
indications  of  special 
treatment  of  the 
body,  such  as  the  ty¬ 
ing  of  the  limbs  to¬ 
gether  to  form  a  com¬ 
pact  package,  or  the 
dismemberment  of  the 
body  and  a  rearrange¬ 
ment  of  the  parts. 

The  same,  or  a 
closely  related,  race 
cf  men  is  found  in 
the  grottoes  of  Gri¬ 
maldi,  in  the  princi¬ 
pality  of  Monaco  on 
the  Riviera  where, 
since  1872,  no  less 
than  fourteen  skele¬ 
tons  of  the  Cro-Mag¬ 
non  type  have  been 
unearthed.  These  also 
quite  usually  appear 
adorned  with  various 
ornamental  shells 
and  teeth,  which 
often  occur  by  hun¬ 
dreds,  and  there  ap¬ 
pears  about  the  bones 
a  profusion  of  red 
ochre,  evidently  used 
to  paint  either  the 


KNOWN  TYPES  OF  PREHISTORIC  MAN 


421 


bones  or  the  bodies.  The  first  skeleton  found  in 
this  region  occurred  in  the  grotto  of  Cavillon,  and  was 
discovered  by  Riviere  in  1872.  It  acquired  at  the  time 
considerable  fame  under  the  name  of  '‘Man  of  Men¬ 
tone.  ”  In  this  and  the  year  following  the  same  in¬ 
vestigator  found  in  the  grotto  of  Baousso  da  Torre  three 
more  adult  skeletons,  one  of  which,  profusely  decorated 
with  shells,  possessed  a  stature  of  fully  two  meters;  in 
1874  this  was  followed  by  the  discovery  of  the  skeletons 
of  two  children,  of  four  and  six  years,  in  tne  G-rotte  des 
Enfants.  Julien,  who  next  investigated  the  grottoes,  in 
1844,  found  a  skeleton  in  the  Grotto  de  la  Barma  Grande, 
with  the  head  encased  in  red  ochre,  and  in  the  same  cave 
four  more  were  discovered  by  Abbo,  in  1892  and  1894. 
In  1901  further  excavations  were  carried  on  in  the 
Grotte  des  Enfants  by  Albert,  Prince  of  Monaco,  who 
found,  not  only  two  more  skeletons  of  the  Cro-Magnon 
type,  but  in  addition  a  double  grave,  containing  the 
bones  of  an  old  woman  and  a  youth  of  a  totally  distinct 
race,  with  many  negroid  characters.  This  race  of  Homo 
sapiens  has  been  named  the  “Grimaldi  race,”  after  the 
family  name  of  the  Prince  who  made  the  discovery ;  the 
name  also  being  that  of  the  region  in  which  the  grottoes 
occur.  These  negroid  skeletons,  although  distinct  in 
race,  were  evidently  of  the  same  culture  status  as  their 
Cro-Magnon  associates,  for  they  also  were  adorned  with 
a  profusion  of  perforated  shells.  About  the  head  of  the 
youth  was  a  crown  of  four  rows  of  Nassa  shells,  and  two 
bracelets  of  the  same  were  about  the  left  arm  of  the 
woman.  As  in  the  case  of  the  skeleton  of  Chancelade, 
the  closely  approximate  position  of  certain  of  the  limb 
bones  suggested  a  post-mortem  ligation  of  the  parts, 
and  the  skeletons  were  somewhat  folded  so  as  to  present 


422 


MAN'S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


an  appearance  closely  resembling  that  sometimes  found 
among  the  American  aborigines.1  (§69  above.) 

The  discovery  of  so  many  skeletons  of  modern  type, 
decorated  and  painted,  in  a  deposit  of  not  later  than 
the  Magdalenian,  and  in  the  midst  of  the  Quaternary, 


Fig.  102.— Double  grave,  containing  a  young  man  and  an  old  woman,  from  Bausse- 
Rousse,  near  Monaco.  These  skeletons  show  negroid  characteristics,  and  are 
racially  distinct  from  the  Cro-Magnon  skeletons  associated  with  them.  Upon 
these,  as  thus  far  the  only  representatives,  is  founded  the  so-called  Grimaldi 
Race,  from  the  family  name  of  the  Prince  of  Monaco,  on  whose  territory  and 
under  whose  leadership  the  find  was  made.  (After  Verneau,  in  L’ Anthropologie.) 


1  Cf.  Verneau,  V  Anthropoid  1902,  p.  5S7.  Fig.  2,  with  Wilder, 
Amer.  Anthropologist ,  VII,  1905,  pp.  297-2S8,  PL  XXIII,  1. 


KNOWN  TYPES  OF  PREHISTORIC  MAN 


423 


has  naturally  awakened  the  suspicion  that  the  burials 
were  intrusions,  and  were  themselves  of  Neolithic  age 
or  later.  This  view  was  held,  for  example,  by  no  less 
an  authority  than  G.  de  Mortillet  in  France,  and  by 
Castelfranco  and  Pigorini  in  Italy;  but  the  most  recent 
excavations,  those  of  the  Prince  of  Monaco,  which  were 
conducted  with  much  care  and  thoroughness,  and  de¬ 
signed  in  part  to  settle  this  very  point,  prove  beyond  all 
doubt  that  the  skeletons  and  the  deposit  were  contem¬ 
poraneous.1  Verneau  says : 

“A  Vheure  actuelle  aucune  hesitation  nrest  permise; 

it  est  amplement  demontre  par  les  resultats  des  fouilles 
pratiquees  dans  la  Grotte  des  Enfants ,  que  les  Troglo¬ 
dytes  des  Baousse-Rousse  enterrainent  leurs  morts  d 
Vepoque  quaternaire.  Les  recherches  methodiques 
executees  avec  un  soin  meticuleux  dans  cette  caverne 

one,  leve  les  dernier s  doates.”  2 

During  the  summer  of  1909  an  extremely  well-pre¬ 
served  skeleton,  nearly  complete,  was  found  in  a  deposit 
of  undoubted  lower  Aurignacian  age,  associated  with 
artifacts  characteristic  of  the  period.  The  site  was  the 
rockshelter  {atari)  of  Combe-Capelle,  in  Montferrand, 
Perigord,  and  the  discovery  was  made  by  Otto  Hausser, 
the  same  anthropologist  who  discovered  the  Mousterian 


1  These  excavations  were  under  the  immediate  charge  of  the 
Abb6  de  Villeneuve,  assisted  by  M.  Lorenzi,  and  the  results  were 
substantiated  by  MM.  Boule,  Cartailhas  and  Capitan.  The 
decisions  against  the  Quaternary  date  of  the  remains  had  been 
based  upon  insufficietn  data,  and  had  been  made  previous  to 
these  last  ones. 

2  Loc.  cit.,  1902 ;  quoted  by  D£chelette,  Manuel  <T Arclieologle, 
I,  1908,  pp.  290-291.  This  work  also  contains  a  clear  review 
of  all  the  skeletons  obtained  from  the  site  in  question  up  to 
the  date  of  publication. 


424 


MAN  S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


skeleton  three  years  before.  As  in  the  other  case  he 
associated  with  him  in  the  actual  excavation  Professor 
Klaatseh,  and  thus  the  results,  both  in  actual  remains, 
and  in  observation  of  the  position  and  the  associated 
objects,  leave  nothing  to  wish  for.  The  skeleton,  now  in 
the  Museum  at  Berlin,  is  nearly  complete,  but  with  a 
few  injuries  to  the  separate  bones.1 

Although  at  first  considered  to  be  a  distinct  species 
of  the  genus  Homo,  and  named  Homo  aurignacensis, 
the  Combe-Capelle  skeleton  is  plainly  no  more  than  a 
variety  of  H.  sapiens,  although  perhaps  with  close  affin¬ 
ity  to  the  Cro-Magnon  race.  The  stature,  however,  is 
short  (1600  mm. -5  ft.  3  in.),  and  the  skull  is  very  doli¬ 
chocephalic  (cranial  index  65.75).  It  is  this  latter  char¬ 
acter  which  has  led  to  suppositions  of  a  possible  affinity 
with  certain  other  very  long-headed  skulls,  such  as  the 
Briinn  II  (cran.  index  68.1)  and  the  Briix  (cran.  index 
69  approx.)  attributed  to  the  Solutrean,  and  considered 
below.  At  the  present  the  exact  position  of  the  Combe- 
Capelle  skeleton  is  doubtful,  and  there  are  professional 
supporters  for  each  of  the  four  possible  views:  (1)  that 
it  is  a  late  Cro-Magnon;  (2)  that  t  belongs  with  the 
Briinn  II  group;  (3)  that  it  is  a  form  intermediate 
between  the  two;  and  (4)  that  it  is  a  distinct  variety, 
i.e.,  Homo  sapiens,  var.  aurignacensis.  The  extreme 
view,  held  by  its  discoverers,  that  it  is  a  distinct  new 
species,  Homo  aurignacensis,  is  not  likely. 

84.  Paleolithic  Human  Remains  of  Doubtful  Posi¬ 
tion,  but  Representing  the  Modern  Species,  Homo 

1  For  the  skeleton  of  Combe-Capelle,  ef.  the  account  of  the 
original  discovery  by  Ivlaatseh,  in  Prdhist.  Zeitschr.,  I,  1910, 
pp.  273-338,  and  in  Zeitschr.  f.  Ethnol.,  1910,  pp.  513-577. 


KNOWN  TYPES  OF  PREHISTORIC  MAN 


425 


sapiens / — A  number  of  undoubtedly  ancient  crania, 
found  in  various  parts  of  Europe,  mostly  before  the 
methods  of  investigation  and  comparison  had  progressed 
sufficiently  to  estimate  their  value  rightly,  have  been 
studied  from  time  to  time,  often  with  some  attempt  to 
associate  them  in  groups,  or  otherwise  show  their  affin¬ 
ities.  Naturally  these  alliances,  based  upon  insufficient 
data,  are  frequently  found  to  be  artificial,  and  the  whole 
subject  has  needed  the  maturer  judgment  of  these  later 
years.  Within  the  last  decade  this  more  critical  exami¬ 
nation  of  these  older  specimens  has  been  made,  and  has 
resulted  in  placing  the  subject  upon  a  sounder  basis. 

Preeminent  in  this  work  has  been  the  Strassburg 
anthropologist,  the  late  Professor  Schwalbe,  but  numer¬ 
ous  others,  among  whom  may  be  especially  mentioned 
Klaatsch,  Gorjanovic-Kramberger,  and  Obermeier,  have 
contributed  noteworthy  results  in  this  field. 

As  one  of  the  first  results  of  this  modern  criticism  the 
“Galley-Hill  group”  of  MacNamara,  consisting  of  the 
two  skulls,  Gibraltar  and  Galley  Hill,  has  been  broken 
up,  and  its  members  disassociated ;  the  Gibraltar  skull 
referred  to  Homo  neandertalensis ,  as  treated  above,  and 
the  Galley  Hill  specimen  united  with  Homo  sapiens,  as 
an  extremely  primitive  type  of  that  species,  associated 
with  the  skull  from  Briix.  For  these  two  types,  Galley 
Hill  and  Briix,  distinctly  lower  than  any  other  known 


1  For  general  works  on  these  and  other  ancient  skulls,  cf. 
the  following :  G.  and  A.  de  Mortillet,  “La  Preliistoire,”  3rd  ed., 
Paris,  1900,  pp.  251-260  and  291-302 ;  H.  Obermaier,  “Les  restes 
humaines  quaternaires  dans  Europe  centrale,”  Part  I,  L' Anthro¬ 
pologic,  1905,  pp.  3S5-410,  and  Part  II,  UAnthropologie,  1906, 
pp.  55-80;  E.  Fischer,  Article,  “Fossile  Hominiden,”  in  “Hand- 
worterbuch  der  Naturwissensckaften” ;  Fischer,  Jena,  1813. 


426 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


specimens  of  Homo  sapiens ,  Wilser  and  Gorjanovic- 
Kramberger  propose  the  name  Homo  fossilis,  a  variety, 
or  perhaps  a  species,  intermediate  between  the  two  spe¬ 
cies  neandertalensis  and  sapiens ,  but  nearer  the  latter. 
This  proposal  is  a  convenient  one  and  serves  to  isolate 
this  primitive  group  from  the  rest,  a  position  borne  out 
by  careful  measurements ;  yet  a  few  other  skulls,  like  the 
one  from  Combe-Capelle,  are  not  far  removed  and  serve 
perhaps  to  link  this  group  to  that  of  Cro-Magnon,  thus 
denying  it  a  sufficient  degree  of  isolation  to  be  consid¬ 
ered  a  separate  species. 

The  Galley  Hill  cranium  was  found  in  1888  by  Elliot, 
an  amateur  collector,  at  the  place  of  that  name,  three 
quarters  of  a  mile  northwest  of  the  town  of  Northfleet. 
Kent.  The  specimen  included  originally  the  entire  skel¬ 
eton,  but  unfortunately  the  bones,  which  were  very  soft, 
were  first  found  by  a  workman,  and  neither  he  nor  Mr. 
Elliott  were  very  successful  in  removing  them.  Thus 
the  portions  recovered  were  fragmentary  and  included, 
besides  a  skull  with  the  facial  bones  wanting,  the  right 
half  of  the  jaw,  the  femora,  tibiae,  the  clavicle  and 
humerus  of  one  side,  and  fragments  of  the  pelvis  and 
sacrum. 

These  bones  were  first  subjected  to  a  scientific  investi¬ 
gation  in  1895  by  Newton,1  but  his  paper  was  a  short 
one,  and  there  is  great  need  of  a  more  complete  study  of 
this  interesting  form.  In  features  this  skull,  like  all  the 
early  specimen  of  H.  sapiens,  is  extremely  long  and  nar¬ 
row,  having  a  maximum  length  of  205  mm.  and  a  breadth 


1E.  T.  Newton.  “On  a  Human  Skull  and  Limb-bones  found 
in  the  Paleolithic  Terrace  Gravel  at  Galley  Hill,  Kent.”  Quart. 
Journ.  Geol.  Soc.,  August,  1895,  pp.  505-527  (1  plate). 


KNOWN  TYPES  OF  PREHISTORIC  MAN  427 

of  but  132,  which  give  a  cranial  index  of  64.4.  The  cra¬ 
nial  dome  is  low,  and  the  forehead  somewhat  retreating. 
There  are  conspicuous  superciliary  ridges,  but  they  con¬ 
tain  only  the  superciliaiy  elements  of  Schwalbe,  and  not 
the  supra-orbital  ones  lateral  to  these,  and  are  thus  not 
comparable  to  the  tori  of  the  species  neandertalensis. 
The  face  is  not  markedly  prognathous,  and  the  chin  pos¬ 
sesses  a  good  mental  prominence. 

The  same  general  characteristics  are  met  with  in  the 
cranium  from  Briix  in  Bohemia,  recently  described  in 
detail  by  Schwalbe.1  This  skull  was  found  in  the  sub¬ 
urbs  of  the  town  of  Briix  in  Bohemia,  forty  miles  north¬ 
west  of  Prague,  and  near  the  German  border.  It  was 
excavated  on  Dec.  12,  1871,  and  came  into  the  possession 
of  Dr.  V.  Fric,  the  proprietor  of  the  well-known  Nat¬ 
ural  Science  establishment.  At  the  site  of  discovery  the 
surface  loam  has  a  depth  of  two  feet,  followed  imme¬ 
diately  beneath  by  a  deposit  of  good  building  sand.  At 
the  depth  of  six  inches  within  this  latter,  or  two  and  one 
half  feet  beneath  the  surface,  there  was  found  a  typical 
Neolithic  axe,  of  the  type  known  as  a  casse-tete ,  and 
some  two  feet  beneath  this  lay  the  skeleton. 

The  circumstances  of  this  find  are  thus  in  no  way 
positive,  and  have  led  to  no  definite  conclusion  concern¬ 
ing  age.  The  sand  layer  is  generally  considered  Quater¬ 
nary,  but  Woldrich  believes  it  to  be  more  modern,  yet 
concedes  that  the  skeleton  and  the  axe  were  associated 

*G.  Schwalbe,  “Das  Schadelfragment  von  Briix  nnd  ver- 
wande  Schadelformen.”  Article  II  in  the  “Studien  zur  Vorge- 
schichte  des  Menschen,”  published  as  a  “Sonderheft”  to  the 
Zeitscher.  fur  Morphol.  und  Anthropol.,  pp.  81-182,  3  plates  and 
31  text  figs.  (For  the  Gibraltar  skull,  cf.  especially  pp.  154« 
160.) 


428 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


accidentally  and  have  nothing  to  do  with  each  other.  It 
is  thus  necessary  to  rely  wholly  upon  the  physical  char¬ 
acters  of  the  skull  itself,  which  shows  a  close  resemblance 


A 


Fig.  103.— Two  views  of  the  skull-fragment  from  Briix  in 
Bohemia.  (After  Schwalbe.) 


to  that  from  Galley  Hill,  although  the  cranium  is  smaller. 
Schwalbe  estimates  the  maximum  length,  if  the  skull 
were  complete,  at  190-195  mm.  and  the  maximum  breadth 


KNOWN  TYPES  OF  PREHISTORIC  MAN 


429 


at  130-135,  giving  a  cranial  index  of  approxiately  69. 
The  cranial  dome  as  shown  in  profile  is  low,  at  about 
the  lowest  limit  for  the  recent  species.  As  in  the 
Galley  Hill  skull,  the  superciliary  ridges  are  heavy  and 
somewhat  projecting,  but  they  consist  of  the  medial  or 
superciliary  element  only  (medial  to  the  supra-orbital 
foramen)  and  are  thus  simply  an  exaggeration  of  what 
are  found  in  modern  male  skulls,  and  are  not  the  supra¬ 
orbital  tori  of  the  Neandertal  species,  which  possess  also 
a  large  lateral  element,  and  extend  entirely  across  the 
brows. 

A  third  skull,  belonging  with  the  two  last  is  that 
known  as  “Briinn  II”  and  found  by  Makowsky  at 
Briinn  in  Moravia,  in  1891. 1  It  was  found  during  the 
excavation  for  a  building,  and  was  badly  injured  during 
removal,  an  unlucky  step  on  the  part  of  a  workman 
utterly  destroying  the  jaw  and  a  large  part  of  the  face. 
The  site  was  evidently  an  interment,  and,  as  in  the  Cro- 
Magnon  graves,  there  were  found  a  quantity  of  shells 
used  for  decoration,  in  this  case  over  six  hundred  Den- 
talium  shells.  There  were  also  other  associated  objects 


1  Six  years  before  this  the  same  investigator  had  found  and 
exploited  another  supposedly  ancient  skull,  which  is  known 
as  “Briinn  I,”  and  is  liable  to  be  confused  with  the  one  of 
1891,  especially  as  casts  of  both  of  them  a^’e  furnished  by  Dr. 
Kranz  of  Bonn,  and  are  often  found  in  collections  in  associa¬ 
tion.  No.  I  was  found  on  the  “Roter  Berg,”  near  the  city, 
and  No.  II  in  the  city  itself,  on  Max-Joseph  Strasse,  but  it  hap¬ 
pened  that  No.  II  lay  in  red  earth,  and  is  stained  a  deep 
red  color,  while  No.  1,  although  found  on  the  Roter  Berg,  is 
not  red,  but  ochre  yellow.  As  these  colors  are  reproduced  in 
the  casts,  this  circumstance  is  likely  to  add  to  the  confusion. 
As  it  has  proved,  Briinn  I  is  quite  modern  in  type,  and  perhaps 
in  date,  being  not  earlier  than  Neolithic,  while  Briinn  II,  con¬ 
sidered  here,  is  definitely  Quarternary  in  date,  and  of  an 
extremely  low  and  distinctive  type  of  Homo  sapiens. 


A 


Fig.  104. — Two  views  of  the  skull-fragment  from  Brunn  in 
Moravia.  This  is  the  one  from  Max-Joseph  Strasse  within 
the  city,  and  often  designated  as  Brunn  II.  Another  skull, 
found  on  the  Roter  Berg  outside  the  city,  and  known  as 
Brunn  I,  is  probably  quite  modern  (Neolithic).  (After  Ma- 
kowsky.) 


KNOWN  TYPES  OF  PREHISTORIC  MAN 


431 


of  interest,  such  as  small  perforated  disks  of  bone  and 
ivory,  and  a  little  human  effigy  of  mammoth  ivory, 
thought  by  experts  to  have  been  cut  out  while  the  ivory 
was  still  in  a  fresh  state.  This  statuette  was  in  two 
pieces,  with  several  parts  lacking,  and  showed  little 
artistic  skill.  The  skull  is  a  large  one,  with  a  length  of 
204  mm. ;  yet  with  a  breadth  of  only  139  mm.,  it  is  very 
dolichocephalic,  and  shows  a  cranial  index  of  only  68.2. 
The  cranial  vault  profile  is,  however,  higher  than  in  the 
skull  of  Brtix,  and  compares  well  with  the  Cro-Magnon 
average.1 

The  Egisheim  cranium,  which  lacks  face  and  jaw, 
and  is  otherwise  very  fragmentary,  is  yet  of  much  im¬ 
portance.  It  was  found  in  1865  by  Faudet  at  Egisheim, 
near  Colmar  in  Alsace,  and,  like  the  foregoing,  occurred 
in  the  loess,  associated  with  the  bones  of  Quaternary 
animals.  In  spite  of  its  great  age,  however,  it  is  defi¬ 
nitely  of  the  species  sapiens ,  and  belongs  somewhere 
near  the  Cro-Magnon  race,  perhaps,  as  suggested  by 
Klaatsch,  a  transition  to  the  modern  type.  With  a 
length  of  197  mm.  and  a  breadth  of  150,  which  gives  a 
moderately  dolichocephalic  index  of  76.1,  the  skull  is 
removed  from  the  Galley  Hill-Brux-Briinn  group,  and 
comes  nearer  the  Cro-Magnons.2 

85.  Late  Paleolithic  Interments ;  the  First  Brachy- 
cephals. — The  first  skulls  of  the  brachycephalic,  or  broad- 

1  A.  Makowsky,  “Dei*  diluviale  Menseh  in  Loss  von  Briinn.” 
Mitt,  anthrop.  Ges.  Wien.,  1892,  pp.  73-84  (3  plates).  M.  Kriz, 
“Beitrage  zur  Ivenntniss  der  Qnartarzeit  in  Mahren.”  Steinitz, 
1903,  pp.  560  (ISO  figs.). 

2  G.  Schwalbe,  “Ueber  die  Schadel-formen  der  altesten  Men- 
sclienrassen  mit  besonderen  Beriicksicbtignng  des  Schadels 
von  Egisheim.”  Mitteilungen  d’  naturliist.  Gesellscli,  in  Kol¬ 
mar,  17  Stn.,  1S97. 


KNOWN  TYPES  OF  PREHISTORIC  MAN 


433 


headed,  type  date  from  the  Azilian  Tardenoisian  Period 
of  the  Late  Paleolithic,  and  have  thus  far  been  obtained 
from  three  localities :  the  grotto  of  Furfooz,  in  Belgium ; 
at  Grenelle,  near  Paris ;  and  the  grotto  at  Ofnet,  west  of 
Munich.  The  first  of  these  was  a  grotto  used  for  inter¬ 
ment,  and  contained  the  skeletons  of  sixteen  individuals, 
the  mouth  being  closed  by  a  great  stone  block.  Discov¬ 
ered  by  Dupont  in  1866,  too  early  for  careful  study  of 
the  site,  only  two  of  the  skulls  were  sufficiently  well  pre¬ 
served  for  observation,  but  these  were  seen  at  the  time 
to  be  brachycephalic,  and  as  such  excited  quite  a  little 
interest  at  the  time.  Upon  these  Quatrefages  and  Hamy 
founded  their  “ Brachycephalic  Furfooz  race,”  a  name 
which  may  be  convenient  to  retain  for  all  remains  of 
this  type.1 

The  Grenelle  remains  consist  of  a  single  skull,  exca¬ 
vated  in  1870,  with  unfortunately  too  little  data  to  be 
sure  of  its  period.  It  is  definitely  brachycephalic,  but 
is  probably  Neolithic. 

The  burial  at  Ofnet  was  found  in  the  larger  of  the  two 
grottoes  at  this  place,  and  is  in  the  method  of  interment 
employed  absolutely  unique.  The  deposits  on  the  floor 
of  this  grotto  consist  in  order,  from  the  bottom  up,  of 
Aurignacian,  early  Solutrean,  late  Magdalenian,  Azilian- 
Tardenoisian,  Upper  Neolithic,  Hallstatt-La  Tene,  and 
medieval,  with  characteristic  artifacts  in  each,  and  in 


1  For  the  Furfooz  interment,  cf.  E.  Dupont,  “Etudes  sur  les 
feuilles  scientifiques  executees  pendent  l’hiver  de  1865-1S66 
dans  les  caverns  des  bords  de  la  Lesse.”  Bull.  Acad.  R.  de 
Belgique,  Ser.  2,  T.  22,  pp.  31-54.  The  skull  nests  at  Ofnet 
are  described  and  pictured  by  Sclilitz,  in  Part  III  of  a  large 
work  written  by  R.  R.  Schmidt  and  others,  with  the  title, 
“Die  diluviale  Vorzeit  Deutschlands,”  Stuttgart,  1912. 


431 


MAN'S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


the  Azilian-Tardenoisian  layer  were  found  two  masses, 
or  *  ‘nests,”  of  human  skulls,  disposed  in  a  single  layer, 
and  facing  uniformly  west.  In  the  larger  nest  there 
were  no  less  than  twenty-seven  such  skulls,  and  in  the 
other,  distant  from  the  first  only  about  three  feet,  were 
six  more.  With  nearly  all  of  them  were  associated 
numerous  beautifully  worked  Azilian  flints,  and  they 
were  decorated  with  ornaments  made  of  stag  horn  and 


Fig.  106. — The  two  nests  of  skulls  found  at  Ofnet,  near  Munich.  These  consist 
of  remains  of  men,  women,  and  children,  mainly  the  two  latter,  and  the 
heads  with  part  of  the  necks  attached  had  been  cut  off,  either  when  the  vic¬ 
tims  were  still  alive  or  soon  after  death.  Both  dolichocephalic  and  bra- 
chycephals  are  the  earliest  known  skull  of  this  type.  In  age  these  deposits 
are  determined  to  be  Azilian-Tardenoisian.  (After  R.  R.  Schmidt.) 

sea  shells.  All  lay  embedded  in  ochre,  used  probably 
as  paint,  and,  as  the  central  ones  were  more  crushed 
than  the  outer  ones,  it  may  be  deduced  that  the  skulls 
were  not  placed  there  simultaneously,  but  were  added 
singly,  or  a  few  at  a  time.  The  majority  of  the  skulls 
were  those  of  women  and  children,  but  there  were  four 
adult  males. 

Naturally  a  matter  of  immediate  interest  is  that  of  a 
possible  explanation  of  this  singular  mode  of  interment, 


KNOWN  TYPES  OF  PREHISTORIC  MAN 


435 


but  as  yet  there  is  no  very  satisfactory  one.  The  heads 
had  evidently  been  placed  there  when  fresh,  and  had 
been  cut  off  from  the  bodies  with  heavy  knives  of  flint, 
for  the  jaws  and  neck  vertebrae  were  still  in  associa¬ 
tion  with  the  skulls,  and  upon  the  latter  were  numer¬ 
ous  deep  gashes  which  could  only  have  been  thus  in¬ 
flicted.  The  prevalence  of  children  suggests  cannibal¬ 
ism,  yet  in  that  case  the  heads  would  have  formed  a  part 
of  the  feast,  and  they  would  hardly  have  been  laid  away 
in  ochre,  and  with  the  valuable  associated  objects.  The 
other  most  natural  suggestion  is  that  of  a  ritualistic 
sacrifice,  yet  the  indications  are  too  few  to  raise  this 
above  the  rank  of  a  guess. 

What  is  of  especial  interest  to  the  anthropologist  is 
the  fact  that  in  these  nests  is  found  a  mixture  of  both 
long  and  short-headed  skulls,  together  with  others  that 
are  hybrids  between  the  two.  The  short-heads  corre¬ 
spond  well  with  those  of  Furfooz,  and  undoubtedly 
belong  to  the  same  race,  but  the  long-heads  are  in  gen¬ 
eral  shape  unlike  the  earlier  long-heads  of  Briinn  and 
Briix,  and  must  be  considered  as  new  importations,  like 
the  others.  One  of  the  eight  short-headed  skulls  has  a 
cranial  index  of  83.33,  while  the  best  preserved  long¬ 
headed  skulls  shows  one  of  70.5.  Some  have  seen  in 
these  earliest  European  Brachycephals  the  advent  of 
the  Alpine  race  of  later  times,  and  in  the  same  way  the 
long-heads  may  be  Mediterraneans ;  but  we  know  at  pres¬ 
ent  too  little  of  the  intermediate  history  to  draw  safely 
such  fundamental  conclusions.  As  in  so  many  other 
cases,  it  is  better  to  consider  the  Ofnet  burials  as  fur¬ 
nishing  data  of  the  utmost  importance,  without  attempt¬ 
ing  as  yet  to  relate  them  too  definitely  to  other  facts. 


436 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


86.  Early  European  Ape-Men;  Homo  Jieidelber gen- 
sis  a7id  Eoanthropus  dawsoni. — Placing  the  advent  of  the 
present  human  species  in  Europe  within  the  Aurigna- 
cian  period,  and  associating  his  immediate  predecessor, 
Homo  neandertalensis,  with  the  Mousterian,  we  have  a 
vast  period  of  time  earlier  than  this  during  which  activ¬ 
ities  quite  beyond  the  power  of  any  known  ape  con¬ 
stantly  manifested  themselves.  Someone  was  responsi¬ 
ble  for  the  hand  axes  of  the  Acheulian,  and  someone 
had  learned  to  make  a  straight  cutting  edge  for  them 
which  in  the  previous  period  he  could  not  do.  Someone 
still  earlier,  at  Strepy  and  perhaps  at  Mesvin,  busied 
himself  with  flint  tools,  and  made  the  initial  experi¬ 
ments  in  shaping  them  into  better  and  more  convenient 
forms ;  and  if  we  can  believe  the  imperfect  evidences, 
someone  still  earlier,  even  back  in  the  Pliocene,  held 
chance  pieces  of  flint  in  hands  much  like  ours,  and  used 
them  for  various  simple  mechanical  purposes. 

But  what  was  the  appearance  of  the  being  or  succession 
of  beings  whose  activities  are  thus  expressed?  In  what 
bodily  shape  was  housed  the  restless  spirit  that  expe¬ 
rienced  successively  the  tropical  warmth  and  the  first 
glaciations,  whose  descendants  developed  into  the  man 
of  Neandertal,  and  whose  roots  went  deep  into  the  line 
of  Simians?  Has  a  single  scrap  of  hone  or  tooth,  im¬ 
bedded  in  glacial  drift  or  wind-blown  sand,  come  down 
to  us  to  afford  a  single  glimpse  of  such  transition 
beings? 

At  the  present  writing  European  prehistorians  are 
able  to  present  remains  of  two  such  specimens  in  that 
continent,  not  precisely  dated,  but  of  early  Quaternary 
origin,  the  Heidelberg  jaw  and  the  Piltdown  cranium. 


KNOWN  TYPES  OF  PREHISTORIC  MAN 


437 


The  first  of  these  was  discovered  October  21,  1907,  by 
Dr.  Otto  Schoetensack  of  Heidelberg,  in  a  gravel  pit  in 
the  village  of  Mauer,  about  ten  kilometers  south  of  his 

a 


Fig.  107. — The  mandible  found  at  Mauer,  15  kilometers  south  of  Heidelberg  in 
1907,  and  the  type  and  only  known  fragment  of  the  species  Homo  heidelber- 
gensis.  (After  Schoetensack.) 


438 


MAN'S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


place  of  residence.1  This  pit  has  long  been  used  as  a 
source  of  building  sand,  and  has  yielded  from  time  to 
time  during  many  years  occasional  bones  and  teeth  of 
early  Quaternary  mammals,  and,  because  of  this,  has 
long  been  under  the  surveillance  of  the  university  author¬ 
ities.  In  this  they  have  been  ably  seconded  by  the  Direc¬ 
tor  of  the  pit,  Herr  Rosch,  who,  at  the  time  of  this  impor¬ 
tant  discovery,  had  been  on  the  watch  for  some  thirty 
years,  and  had  carefully  made  over  to  Dr.  Schoetensack 
every  bone  fragment  that  came  to  light. 

The  entire  deposit  in  this  pit  is  fully  twenty-five 
meters  thick,  and  belongs  to  the  early  Quaternary,  as 
may  be  seen  by  the  occurrence  of  the  bones  of  the  Ele- 
phas  antiquus  instead  of  Elephas  primigenius,  of  Rhi¬ 
noceros  etrucus,  and  not  R.  tichorhinus,  and  the  absence 
of  the  cave  hyena;  and  here,  almost  at  the  bottom  of 
the  stratified  and  undisturbed  deposit,  24.63  meters  be¬ 
neath  the  surface,  was  found  the  jaw  in  question.  It 
was  broken  in  two  pieces  by  the  blow  of  the  spade 
which  revealed  it,  but  the  specimen  was  fortunately  so 
perfectly  preserved  that  there  was  no  splintering  and 
the  two  pieces  were  easily  fastened  together  exactly. 
Furthermore,  a  small  oval  pebble  had  become  firmly 
cemented  to  the  teeth  of  the  left  side  by  lime,  and  in 
its  removal  the  crowns  of  four  teeth,  two  premolars  and 
the  two  first  molars,  were  taken  off,  but  the  teeth  of 
the  opposite  side  are  complete  and  perfect,  as  indeed 
is  the  entire  dentition  otherwise,  which  represents  that 
of  an  adult  in  full  vigor,  without  a  break  or  sign  of 

1  Otto  Schoetensack,  “Dei*  Unterkiefer  des  Homo  heidel- 
bergensis  aus  den  Sanden  von  Mailer  bei  Heidelberg,”  Engel- 
mann,  Leipzig,  190S,  (37  pp.  and  13  plates. 


KNOWN  TYPES  OF  PREHISTORIC  MAN 


439 


caries,  and  with  the  chewing  surfaces  only  slightly  worn 
down. 

Viewed  as  a  whole,  the  jaw  is  extremely  heavy  and 
massive;  the  teeth  are  wholly  of  the  human  type,  with¬ 
out  excessive  emphasis  on  the  canine,  or  suggestion  of 
diastema,  but  the  jaw  itself  is  strongly  simian.  If,  how¬ 
ever,  we  compare  it  carefully  with  the  jaw  of  Spy  I,  or 
jaws  of  the  heavy  type  from  Ivrapina  (var.  spyensis) 
we  find  them  all  somewhat  similar,  save  that  the  jaw 
from  Heidelberg  is  thicker  and  more  massive.  One  of 
the  most  strikingly  simian  features  of  the  Heidelberg 
jaw  is  the  ramus,  which  is  so  broad  and  at  the  same  time 
so  short,  that  the  outer  surface  presents  almost  a  square 
surface  for  the  insertion  of  the  masseter,  quite  as  in  the 
anthropoid  apes,  e.g.,  the  gibbon.  Now  neither  the  jaw  of 
Spy  I,  nor  the  specimens  of  the  Spy  type  from  Ivrapina, 
possess  anything  more  than  fragments  of  the  ramus,  but 
in  the  skeleton  from  La  Chapelle-aux-Saints,  although 
a  little  senile  and  nearly  toothless,  the  jaw  is  practically 
complete.  When  restored  in  a  few  places,  and  with  the 
shrunken  alveoli  built  out  and  equipped  with  teeth,  M. 
Boule  asserts  that  it  bears  an  extraordinary  resemblance 
to  the  jaw  from  Heidelberg;  and,  still  more  important 
he  fits  the  cast  of  the  latter  to  the  skull  from  La 
Chapelle-aux-Saints,  and  finds  that  it  fits  almost  as 
well  as  does  the  jaw  that  belongs  with  it,  harmonizing 
fairly  well  in  outline  and  in  general  contours.  (Cf. 
Fig.  100.) 

It  thus  seems  likely  that  the  jaw  “from  the  sands  of 
Mauer,  ”  in  spite  of  its  strikingly  simian  features,  was, 
after  all,  in  its  general  appearance  not  so  very  much 
below  that  of  Homo  neandertalensis,  but  that,  when 


440 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


studied  in  detail,  every  character  that  differed  at  all 
differed  in  the  direction  downward,  or  toward  the 
simians.  Thus,  in  the  thickness  through  the  body  of 
the  jaw,  those  of  Spy  I  and  Heidelberg  measure  respec¬ 
tively;  at  the  mental  foramen,  13.5  and  18.5;  across  the 
third  molar,  16  and  23.5 ;  and  at  the  symphysis,  15  and 
17.5.  The  width  at  the  symphysis  (symphysial  height) 
is  hard  to  ascertain  in  the  Heidelberg  specimen,  because 
of  the  loss  of  the  alveolar  processes  upon  the  outer  side, 
a  condition  which  exposes  the  roots  of  the  incisor  teeth, 
but  the  indications  are  that  in  this  measurement  the  two 
jaws  are  the  same,  34.5  or  35.  That,  however,  the  body 
of  the  jaw  is  higher  in  the  Heidelberg  specimen  further 
back  is  shown  by  a  comparison  of  the  measure  taken 
beneath  the  middle  of  the  second  molar  teeth,  28.5  in 
Spy  I,  and  31.8  in  the  Heidelberg. 

In  the  ramus,  which  is  so  broad  and  short  as  to  sug¬ 
gest  strongly  an  ape,  the  least  breadth,  taken  where  the 
margins  curve  in  a  little,  is  51.5  mm.  while  in  recent 
men  this  measurement  is  seldom  above  35. 

Summarizing  the  evidence  thus  far  concerning  the 
jaw  “from  the  sands  of  Mauer”  we  may  acknowledge 
with  Schoetensaek  that  it  is  “pre-neandertaloicl,”  and 
represents  a  stage  previous  to  that  shown  in  Homo  nean- 
dertalensis.  Although  difficult  to  date,  it  seems  by  the 
associated  animals  to  belong  somewhere  in  the  Second 
Interglacial  Period,  that  of  the  Mindel-Kiss,  and  thus 
antedates  the  Neandertal  men  by  perhaps  two  hundred 
thousand  years.  Judging  by  its  characteristics  it  was 
probably  the  direct  ancestor  of  the  latter,  and  thus  rep¬ 
resents  an  earlier  stage  of  the  race  which  culminated  in 
the  Mousterian,  and  then  died  out,  or  was  exterminated, 


KNOWN  TYPES  OF  PREHISTORIC  MAN 


441 


leaving  no  descendants.  The  physical  differences  are 
great  enough  to  place  it  as  an  independent  species  of 
the  same  genus,  and  it  has  thus  taken  its  place  among  the 
other  “men”  as  Homo  heidelbergensis. 

The  other  early  Quaternary  specimen  is  the  “Pilt- 
down  skull,”  found  in  1911,  but  first  announced  offi¬ 
cially  in  March,  1913,  with  the  publication  of  a  carefully 
written  description  of  the  site.1 

About  ten  years  previous  to  this  date  Mr.  Charles 
Dawson  noticed  some  flints  in  the  country  road  near 
Piltdown  Common,  Fletching,  Sussex  (England)  and 
ascertained  that  the  material  forming  the  surface  in 
this  spot  came  from  a  near-by  gravel  bed,  from  which  it 
had  been  taken  to  mend  the  road.  He  then  consulted  the 
workmen  employed  at  the  gravel  bed,  and  made  an 
arrangement  something  like  that  of  Dr.  Schoentensack 
with  the  officials  at  Mauer,  by  which  the  men  were  to 
save  for  him  any  bone  fragments  found  there.  Some 
days  after  this  a  workman  handed  him  a  piece  of  a  very 
thick  parietal  bone,  which  he  kept,  but  delayed  publish¬ 
ing  until  he  found  more.  In  1911,  some  years  after  this 
first  discovery,  he  himself  found  in  the  pit  a  fragment 
of  a  frontal  bone,  also  thick,  which  he  took  to  his  col¬ 
league,  Professor  Arthur  Smith  Woodward.  After  this 
both  men  made  a  more  careful  study  of  the  pit,  and  col- 

1  Clias.  Dawson  and  A.  S.  Woodward,  “On  the  discovery  of 
a  paleolithic  human  skull  and  mandible  in  a  flint-bearing  gravel 
overlying  the  Wealden  (Hastings  beds),  at  Piltdown,  Fletching 
(Sussex).”  Quart.  Journ.  Geol.  Sac.,  Vol.  69,  No.  273,  March 
1913,  pp.  117-151.  (This  number  contains  three  papers  on  this 
subject,  by  Dawson,  Woodward,  and  G.  Elliott  Smith.  Cf, 
also  reviews  of  the  find  in  Science,  Nov.  7,  1913,  pp.  663-664, 
and  by  MacCurdy,  in  Amer.  Anthropol Yol.  15,  1913,  pp.  248- 
256.) 


442 


MAN'S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


lected  several  more  pieces,  presumably  of  the  same  skull 
and  also  a  very  primitive  jaw,  all  of  which  had  evidently 
been  carelessly  thrown  aside  by  the  workmen.  They  ob¬ 
tained  also  bones  of  a  Pliocene  elephant,  and  flint  arti¬ 
facts  of  both  Chellean  and  pre-Chellean  types,  also 
eoliths.  These  numerous  objects  were  plainly  of  a  dif¬ 
ferent  original  date,  and  had  been  collected  in  the  glacial 
drift  by  the  not  too  gentle  force  of  ice.  Thus  the  bones 
“cannot  be  safely  described  as  being  of  earlier  date  than 
the  first  half  of  the  Pleistocene  (Quaternary)  Epoch. 
The  individual  probably  lived  during  a  warm  cycle  in 
that  age.  ’  ’ 1 

The  skull  is  a  little  surprising  in  not  being  strik¬ 
ingly  different  in  form  from  that  of  the  recent  species. 
The  bones  are,  however,  unusually  thick  and  heavy,  and 
the  brain  cast,  made  from  the  bones,  is  unmistakably 
very  low  and  ape-like.  Otherwise  the  general  form  is 
rounded,  with  a  fairly  high  forehead,  and  without  indi¬ 
cation  of  the  heavy  supraorbital  tori  so  marked  a  fea¬ 
ture  of  Homo  neandertalensis.  The  jaw,  on  the  other 
hand,  is  unmistakably  simian,  much  more  so  than  the 
Heidelberg  specimen ;  and  it  is  for  this  reason  that  the 
investigators  felt  the  necessity  of  placing  the  specimen 
in  a  new  genus,  to  which  they  gave  the  name  of  Eoan- 
thropus.  For  the  specific  name,  Woodward  selected  the 
obvious  dawsoni ,  in  honor  of  the  discoverer.  In  the 
paper  cited  the  new  genus  is  rather  loosely  defined  “by 
its  ape-like  mandibular  symphysis,  parallel  molar-pre¬ 
molar  series,  and  narrow  lower  molars  which  do  not 
decrease  in  size  backwards ;  to  which  diagnostic  charac- 


1  Dawson,  loc.  cit. 


KNOWN  TYPES  OF  PREHISTORIC  MAN 


443 


ters  may  probably  be  added  the  steep  frontal  eminence 
and  slight  development  of  brow  ridges.” 

On  account  of  the  undoubtedly  simian  character  of  the 
mandible,  as  compared  with  the  almost  modern  form  of 
the  cranium,  some  anthropologists  have  felt  from  the 
first  that  the  two  parts  do  not  belong  together,  a  posi¬ 
tion  that  may  easily  be  maintained  from  the  confessedly 
non-contemporaneous  character  of  the  other  objects 
found  in  the  pit ;  and  this  feeling  became  stronger  after 
the  careful  examination  of  the  jaw  and  teeth  by  an 
American  specialist  on  the  primates,  Dr.  Gerritt  S. 
Miller,  who  pronounced  the  jaw  definitely  that  of  a 
chimpanzee  (genus,  Pan).  Of  this  he  made  a  new 
species,  Pan  vetus,  and  by  this  claimed  the  presence 
of  one  of  the  large  modern  anthropoid  apes  in  Quater¬ 
nary  England,  hitherto  unknown.  To  the  jaw  belongs 
also  a  canine  tooth,  found  after  the  other  pieces  by  the 
Rev.  Fr.  Teilhard,  a  friend  of  Dawson. 

In  spite  of  the  lack  of  date  for  any  of  the  fragments, 
and  the  known  lack  of  contemporaneity  in  many  of 
the  pieces  colleeted,  the  great  thickness  of  the  cranial 
pieces,  and  the  primitive  character  of  the  brain,  as  indi¬ 
cated  hy  them,  show  that  we  have  here  to  do  with  a 
really  new  form,  perhaps  generally  distinct  from 
Homo ,  and  more  in  line  of  ancestry  with  modern  man 
than  Homo  neandertalensis,  which  is  now  generally 
felt  to  be,  not  a  direct  ancestor,  but  a  side  branch.  Homo 
heidelbergensis  comes  into  the  Neandertal  line,  as  its 
ancestor,  but  the  entire  line  died  out  during  the  late 
Quaternary,  and  left  no  descendants.  Eoanthropus, 
on  the  other  hand,  may  easily  have  been  somewhere 
in  the  direct  line  leading  to  the  modern  species,  and 


Fig.  108. — The  Piltdown  Skull,  Eoanthropus  dawsoni;  from  the  gravel  pit  at 
Piltdown,  in  Sussex,  England.  A.  The  cranial  fragment,  with  restoration  of 
the  missing  parts,  seen  from  the  left.  B.  The  same,  from  above.  C.  The 
mandibular  half,  from  the  inside,  but  without  the  missing  tooth,  which  was 
found  detached  from  the  other  piece.  (After  Smith-Woodward.) 


KNOWN  TYPES  OF  PREHISTORIC  MAN 


445 


may  prove  to  be  a  species  intermediate  between  the  lat¬ 
ter  and  the  Javan  semihuman-creature,  Pithecanthro¬ 
pus,  whose  presence  in  Europe  has  never  been  indicated. 

87.  The  Javan  Ape-Man  Pithecanthropus  Erectus. — 
During*  the  linal  decade  of  the  last  century,  when  the 
discoveries  in  the  grotto  of  Spy  were  still  very  recent, 
and  some  years  before  the  findings  at  Krapina,  a  start¬ 
ling  discovery  was  made  in  a  most  unexpected  part  of 
the  world,  and  one  of  a  most  unexpected  nature.  This 
was  the  unearthing  in  1894,  in  the  island  of  Java,  of 
the  skeleton  of  a  being  almost  intermediate  between  man 
and  the  highest  apes,  closely  corresponding  to  the  ‘  ‘  Miss¬ 
ing  Link”  of  a  previous  generation  of  speculators.  Ernst 
Haeckel,  in  his  philosophical  writings,  had  already  pos¬ 
tulated  such  a  creature,  man-like  but  speechless,  to  which 
he  had  given  the  name,  Pithecanthropus  alalus,  and  his 
friend  and  admirer,  Gabriel  Max  the  artist,  had  painted 
a  now  famous  picture  of  this  hypothetical  animal,  and 
presented  it  to  Haeckel  upon  the  latter’s  sixtieth  birth¬ 
day.  Speculation  and  painting  were  alike  fictitious,  but 
here,  if  not  in  the  flesh,  at  least  in  the  bones,  discov¬ 
ered  by  Dr.  Eugene  Dubois,  a  Dutch  medical  mission¬ 
ary,  was  an  actual  being,  no  longer  imaginary,  but  real. 
Naturally  Dubois  gave  to  it  the  name  Pithecanthropus , 
but,  as  he  could  not  deny  it  the  power  of  some  rudiments 
of  speech,  he  chose  for  the  specific  name,  instead  of 
alalus,  the  speechless,  the  word  erectus,  the  most  promi¬ 
nent  physical  character  of  the  new-found  bones. 

These  bones  consisted  of  a  cranium,  almost  complete, 
an  entire  right  femur,  and  two  teeth,  all  quite  detached 
from  one  another,  yet  resting  at  exactly  the  same  level, 
and  without  much  doubt  the  fragments  of  the  same  skel- 


44  t> 


MAN'S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


eton.  In  geological  time  the  stratum  in  which  they  were 
found  had  long  been  considered  late  Pliocene,  but  a  care¬ 
ful  reexamination  of  the  spot  made  it  a  little  later,  pos¬ 
sibly  corresponding  to  the  beginning  of  the  Ice  Age 
(Pleistocene)  in  the  north. 


Immediately  following  this  discovery  there  followed  a 
heated  discussion  concerning  the  systematic  position  of 
this  new  creature.  Some  considered  it  definitely  a  man, 
but  much  lower  than  any  hitherto  known ;  others  called 
it  an  ape,  perhaps  something  like  a  gigantic  gibbon ; 
while  there  was  not  lacking  a  strong  faction,  who  saw  in 
Pithecanthropus  a  definite  transition  form,  intermediate 
between  the  two. 

The  late  Gustav  Schwalbe  of  Strassburg,  through  his 
detailed  study  of  the  remains,  became  the  leading  sup- 


Fig.  110. — Cranium  of  Pithecanthropus,  seen  from  above,  and  compared  with 
the  similar  contours  of  (1)  the  Neandertal  cranium,  and  (2)  that  of  a  gibbon, 
Hylobates.  The  gibbon  outline  is  represented  by  dots;  that  of  the  Neander¬ 
tal  by  dashes.  (After  Schwalbe.) 


448 


MAX’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


porter  of  this  latter  position,  and  considered  Pithecan¬ 
thropus  as  marking  a  stage  in  the  direct  ancestry  of 
Homo  heidelbcrgensis  and  Homo  neandertalensis,  and 
probably  of  modern  man  also.  It  was  possible,  from  the 
sknll  fragment,  to  calculate  approximately  the  cranial 
capacity,  which  was  found  out  to  be  not  far  from  850 
cc.  That  of  our  highest  apes  does  not  exceed  500  cc. 
while  that  of  the  lowest  of  the  recent  species  gives  a 
capacity  of  1200-1300. 

A  result  harmonious  with  the  last  attended  the  exami¬ 
nation  of  the  “calvarial  height, ”  that  is,  the  height  of 
the  cranial  roof,  measured  in  a  profile  curve.  Upon  the 
nasion-inion  line  the  greatest  perpendicular  was  erected, 
and  the  length  of  this  expressed  in  terms  of  the  length 
line.  In  modern  man  this  perpendicular  averages  a  little 
more  than  one-half  of  the  length  line  (52  per  cent)  ;  in 
the  Neandertal  species  40  per  cent,  and  in  Pithecanthro¬ 
pus  34.2.  It  may  also  be  noted  that  the  length-breadth 
index  of  Pithecanthropus  is  73.4,  showing  that  the  head 
is  dolichocephalic,  like  the  Neandertal  species  and  all 
the  early  specimens  of  H.  sapiens,  while  in  all  of  our 
modern  apes,  without  exception,  the  heads  are  brachyce- 
phalic.  The  study  of  the  endocranial  cast,  taken  from 
the  skull  fragment,  showed  a  fairly  well-developed  third 
frontal  convolution  (the  “speech  center”  of  Broca), 
larger  than  in  any  of  the  higher  apes,  yet  less  than  in 
the  Neandertals,  and  suggesting  the  crude  beginnings  of 
an  articulate  speech.  Pithecanthropus,  then,  was  not 
alalus. 

Naturally,  the  unearthing  of  remains  so  vital  to  human 
interest  centered  our  attention  upon  eastern  Asia,  and 
before  long  a  German  expedition,  equipped  by  Mme. 


KNOWN  TYPES  OF  PREHISTORIC  MAN 


449 


Selenka,  the  widow  of  Dr.  Emil  Selenka,  the  anthro¬ 
pologist,  went  to  Java  and  made  further  detailed  exca¬ 
vation  of  the  site  at  Trinil.  A  single  tooth  only,  a  lower 
molar,  rewarded  their  patience,  but  it  probably  belonged 
to  the  same  individual,  and  gave  further  data  concern¬ 
ing  the  proportions  of  the  mandible. 

During  the  present  writing  an  extensive  expedition,  to 
last  several  years  and  include  a  large  part  of  eastern 
Asia,  made  under  the  leadership  of  Dr.  R.  C.  Andrews, 
and  sent  by  the  American  Museum  of  Natural  History 
of  New  York  City,  is  well  under  way,  and,  although  the 
objects  in  view  include  many  interests,  one  of  the  chief 
is  the  search  for  further  remains  of  the  ancestors  of 
man.  It  is  to  be  hoped  and  expected  that  further  impor¬ 
tant  discoveries  may  be  announced  at  any  time. 

88.  Hesperopithcus  liaroldcooki. — A  recent  anounce- 
ment,  undoubtedly  of  the  greatest  significance  in 
this  connection,  but  far  too  fragmentary  to  give  us 
much  definite  information.  Mr.  Harold  Cook,  living 
on  a  ranch  in  Sioux  Co.,  Nebraska,  wrote  to  Professor 
Henry  Fairfield  Osborn,  on  February  25,  1922,  an¬ 
nouncing  the  discovery  of  an  ancient  tooth  of  human 
appearance,  a  second  molar,  the  upper  left,  in  Pliocene 
strata  there.  The  tooth  was  associated  with  remains  of 
Pliohippus,  and  probably  with  Pliauchenia,  the  giant 
camel.  It  was  found  in  the  Snake  Creek  Beds. 

The  tooth  was  sent  later  to  Professor  Osborn,  at  the 
American  Museum  in  New  York,  who  named  the  species 
in  honor  of  its  discoverer,  H  esperanthropus  haroldcooki. 
Judging  from  the  tooth  alone,  this  species  seems  to  have 
been  about  half-way  between  Pithecanthropus  and  the 
man  of  the  present,  and  is  assumed  to  represent  a  very 


450 


MAN  S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


early  migrant  from  Asia  to  the  New  World,  having 
come  by  land  route,  which  would  have  then  been  quite 
possible.1 

89.  Speculations  Concerning  the  Pedigree  of  Modern 
Man. — In  the  early  days  of  the  science,  after  the  Nean- 
dertal  man  was  accepted  as  a  normal  type,  and  not  patho¬ 
logical,  the  natural  tendency  was  to  consider  that  he  was 
the  immediate  ancestor  of  present-day  man,  and  that  he 
developed  in  place  in  Europe  during  the  long  time  which 
separates  the  Mousterian  period  from  the  present.  The 
discovery  of  the  Cro-Magnon  race,  however,  with  its 
sudden  appearance  in  Europe  at  a  definite  date,  and  the 
complete  absence  of  all  transition  forms  between  it  and 
the  Neandertal  type,  emphasize  the  constant  possibility 
of  the  introduction  of  new  types  by  migration  rather  than 
by  development,  and  the  definite  distinctness  of  the  two 
species.  For  some  time  such  early  specimens  as  the 
skulls  of  Galley  Hill  and  Briinn  were  looked  upon  as 
somewhat  neandertaloid,  and  the  skeleton  of  Combe- 
Capelle,  when  first  found,  aroused  the  hope  anew  that 
here  at  last  was  an  intermediate  type  between  the  nean- 
dertalensis  and  modern  man,  but  the  later,  more  care¬ 
ful  anatomical  study  of  all  the  early  fragments  shows 
more  and  more  plainly  the  complete  distinctness  of  the 
two  species.  The  line  of  the  Neanclertals  came  to  an 
abrupt  end  at  about  the  Aurignacian,  and  that  of  the 
modern  type  appeared  equally  suddenly  under  circum¬ 
stance  that  necessitate  the  assumption  of  a  migration. 


JThis  tooth  was  featured,  writh  excellent  illustrations;  in 
the  Illustrated  London  News  for  June  24.  1922,  with  an  article 
by  the  distinguished  English  anthropologist,  Dr.  G.  Elliott 
Smith. 


KNOWN  TYPES  OF  PREHISTORIC  MAN  451 

The  fact  that  the  Neandertal  type  had  no  future, 
however,  does  not  preclude  interest  in  its  past,  which 
can  be  studied  as  in  the  case  of  any  other  extinct 
form;  and  here  comes  in  the  jaw  from  the  sands  of 
Mauer,  near  Heidelberg.  Boule  first  pointed  out  that 
this  jaw,  ape-like  as  are  its  proportions,  fits  the  skull 
from  La  Chapelle,  a  typical  Neandertal  man,  surpris¬ 
ingly  well,  needing  only  a  few  minor  changes  in  details ; 
and  this,  although  largely  a  coincidence,  is  yet  sugges¬ 
tive,  for  the  jaw  and  skull  not  only  fit  mechanically,  but 
seem  not  inharmonious  in  form.  (Cf.  Fig.  100.)  One 
gets  the  same  result  by  comparing  the  jaws  only,  the  one 
from  Heidelberg  with  those  of  the  Neandertal  type : 
namely,  that  while  the  former  is  much  more  simian  it 
is  neanderloid,  far  more  so  than  any  jaw  of  modern 
form.  From  these  and  similar  observations  it  is  now 
generally  felt  that  in  the  man  of  Heidelberg,  present 
in  Europe  as  early  as  the  Mindel-Riss  epoch,  and  dif¬ 
fering  from  an  ape  mainly  in  his  ability  to  use  as  tools 
the  chance  sticks  and  stones  that  came  to  his  hand,  we 
see  the  direct,  immediate  ancestor  of  the  Neandertal 
type. 

Properly  speaking,  we  should  now  rest  at  this  point 
and  await  further  finds  before  continuing  our  specula¬ 
tion,  but  the  point  is  one  of  such  vital  interest  that,  in 
the  absence  of  actual  data,  we  may  be  allowed  to  indulge 
in  hypotheses  while  we  wait.  There  comes  first  to  our 
mind  the  possible  relations  of  the  Javan  Pithecanthro¬ 
pus :  whether  it  was  the  ancestor  of  the  Ileidelberg- 
Neandertal  line  only,  or  of  the  Home  sapiens  line  only, 
with  several  unknown  intermediate  links,  or  whether  it 
may  have  been  the  common  ancestor  of  both  lines.  The 


452 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


discovery  of  the  Piltdown  fragments,  suggesting  a  pos¬ 
sible  “Eoanthropus,”  gave  a  hint  of  a  distinct  line  lead¬ 
ing  to  modern  man,  either  from  Pithecanthropus,  or 
from  a  more  man-like  form  lower  down,  leaving  Pithe¬ 
canthropus  out  on  the  side. 

For  a  time,  especially  in  America,  the  determina¬ 
tion  of  the  Piltdown  jaw  by  Miller  as  that  of  an  ape 
threw  Eoanthropus  into  disfavor,  but  with  the  English 
investigators  there  seems  to  be  no  doubt  that  both  skull 
fragments  and  jaw  were  parts  of  the  same  individual. 
If  this  is  the  case,  Eoanthropus  is  the  most  important 
fossil  now  in  existence,  showing  that  the  line  leading 
to  the  man  of  the  present  day  early  developed  a  high 
forehead  and  large  brain,  avoiding  the  line  that  lead 
through  a  low  and  slanting  forehead,  and  heavy  brows. 

Perhaps,  when  a  more  complete  skull  is  found  of  this 
species,  it  may  suggest  something  definite  of  the  line 
traversed  by  Homo  sapiens  in  attaining  his  present  con¬ 
dition,  although  both  Pithecanthropus  and  Homo  heidel- 
bergensis  fit  in  much  better  as  ancestors  of  the  Neander- 
tal  type,  than  as  those  of  sapiens.  It  is  by  no  means 
impossible  to  believe  that  sapiens  has  come  directly  from 
neandertalensis  somewhere  else,  if  not  in  Europe.  Un¬ 
doubtedly  much  of  the  last  part  of  human  development 
has  taken  place  in  Africa  and  Asia,  and  it  may  not  be 
until  we  are  well  informed  concerning  the  prehistoric 
deposits  of  these  continents  that  we  will  be  in  posses * 
sion  of  the  essential  data  for  explaining  the  human 
pedigree  satisfactorily. 

If,  now,  we  assume  that  the  Heidelberg  man  was  a 
direct  ancestor  of  the  Neandertal,  and  that  Pithecan¬ 
thropus  represents  a  still  earlier  stage  along  the  same 


KNOWN  TYrES  OF  PREHISTORIC  MAN 


453 


line,  the  comparisons  of  proportions  and  the  lines  of 
contour  are  extremely  reasonable  and  harmonious. 
Starting  with  Dubois’  restoration  of  the  skull  of  Pithe¬ 
canthropus  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  skull  of  La  Cha- 
pelle-aux-Saints,  as  rejuvenated  by  MacGregor,  on  the 


Fig.  111. —  Hypothetical  form,  showing  skull  outlines  intermediate  be¬ 
tween  those  of  Pithecanthropus,  as  reconstructed  by  DuBois,  and 
La  Chapelle-aux-Saints,  to  which  has  been  attached  the  jaw  of 
Homo  heidelbergensis.  It  represents  a  transition  form,  midway 
between  the  two. 

other,  an  extremely  plausible  intermediate  form  may  be 
made  by  the  superposition  of  the  two,  drawn  at  the  same 
size,  and  tracing  lines  half  way  between  the  two  outlines, 
and  to  this  hypothetical  form  may  be  given  the  jaw  from 
Heidelberg,  unchanged.  (Fig.  111.)  The  result,  as 
shown  here,  is  a  perfectly  possible  intermediate  form, 
and  furnishes  this  Pithecanthropus  -  heidelbergensis, 
neandertalensis  line  with  so  many  steps  that  nothing  is 


454 


MAN’S  PREHISTORIC  PAST 


wanting.  Whether  the  outlines  of  the  real  heidelberg- 
ensis  skull,  when  found,  will  resemble  these,  cannot  now 
be  known,  but  it  cannot  be  far  different. 

The  possible  steps  below  Pithecanthropus ,  that  is  the 
comparisons  between  it  and  the  apes,  have  already  been 
a  subject  of  much  speculation,  and  it  has  to  be  acknowl¬ 
edged  that  while  no  one  of  the  present  genera  is  an  im¬ 
mediate  ancestor  to  this  form,  yet  in  all  of  them  there 
are  definite  signs  of  close  relationship.  Viewed  as  candi¬ 
dates  for  the  position  of  near  ancestry,  the  orang-utan 
fails  through  his  excessive  prognathism  and  his  short 
cranium.  The  gorilla,  when  adult,  even  in  the  female, 
masks  what  would  be  strongly  similar  outlines  by  its 
tendency  to  develop  huge  muscular  ridges  over  the  crest 
and  across  the  occipital  region ;  and  the  chimpanzee,  in 
some  respects  the  best  candidate,  has  a  rather  weak  jaw. 
The  general  appearance  of  the  skulls  of  our  modern 
anthropoids  is  that  of  several  specializations,  or  varia¬ 
tions,  of  a  common  ancestral  type,  which  existed  per¬ 
haps  in  the  Miocene  or  earlier,  and  it  would  seem  that 
in  this,  if  it  could  be  produced,  we  would  find  the  imme¬ 
diate  ancestor  of  Pithecanthropus. 

If,  now,  we  may  accept  the  Neandertal  man  as  an 
ancestor  of  the  present  type,  developed  elsewhere  than 
in  Europe,  we  have  a  single  line  of  pedigree  without 
gaps,  and  consistent  in  form  and  in  the  age  of  the  sep¬ 
arate  members.  The  assumption  of  such  a  direct  line 
accounts  for  all  the  facts  yet  known  with  the  exception 
of  the  Piltdown  fragments,  which  are  at  present  in  a 
much  less  certain  position  than  they  were  thought  to  be 
some  time  ago.  To  accept  these  as  a  definite  lower  type 
in  the  direct  line  of  human  ancestry  would  remove  from 


KNOWN  TYrES  OF  PREHISTORIC  MAN 


455 


this  latter  both  the  Neandertal  and  Heidelberg  types, 
and  probably  Pithecanthropus,  and  would  substitute  for 
what  we  have  in  these  an  almost  complete  blank,  with 
nothing  but  these  fragments,  without  certain  date,  to 
fill  it.  Naturally,  the  data  are  still  insufficient  for  any 
definite  postulates  concerning  human  ancestry,  but  at 
the  moment  the  hypothesis  presented  here  seems  a  very 
plausible  one.  Should  the  reader  keep  track  of  new  dis¬ 
coveries  in  this  field,  and  note  the  speculations  and 
changes  of  opinion  produced  by  each  new  find,  he  will 
find  it  a  field  of  intense  interest,  well  worthy  of  philo¬ 
sophical  consideration. 


INDEX 


A 

Abraham,  52. 

Acheulian  axe,  158. 

Ache  Lilian  period,  156,  158, 

159. 

aeropoles,  72,  109. 
acropoles,  in  America,  334. 
Africa,  flints  in,  272. 

Age  of  Bronze,  127. 

Age  of  Iron,  127. 
age  of  remains,  methods  of 
ascertaining,  33. 

Age  of  Stone,  127. 

Ainu  people,  280. 
alignments,  82,  85. 
alphabetiform  characters,  189. 
alphabetiform  characters  of 
Mas  d’Azil,  189,  190. 
Anaptomorplms,  9. 

Andernach  am  Ithein,  a  Mag- 
dalenian  site,  118. 

Andrews,  R.  C.,  449. 
ape-man,  12,  21. 
arrow-heads,  classification  of, 
325-327. 

arrow-heads,  Indian,  296-299. 
Arclieolithic  Age,  134. 

Asia,  prehistory  of,  277. 
Athens,  109. 
auerochs,  12. 

Aurignac  race,  416,  423,  424. 
Aurignacian  period,  168-172. 
Aurillac  in  Cantal,  118. 
Avebury,  103,  104,  108,  227-234. 
Avmara,  342. 

Azilian,  188-192. 

Azilian  art,  192-199. 


Azilian  -  Tardenoisian  period, 
187-194. 

Aztecs,  341,  342. 


B 

basketry  as  origin  of  pottery, 
317. 

basketry,  Indian,  308-311. 
bathyscope,  121. 

Beowulf,  description  of 
mounds,  96. 
bison,  12. 

bisons  in  clay,  184. 
bisons,  clay  of  Tuc  d’Audo- 
bert,  184. 

body,  fear  of,  106. 

Bohemia,  hradiste  in,  73. 
Bohnerz  teeth,  145. 
bone  artifacts,  Indian,  301. 
Breasted,  4. 

Breccia,  48. 

Breton  Island  o'  Thinac,  99. 
Britons,  ancient,  5,  37. 
bronze,  240,  241. 

Bronze  Age,  132,  242-250. 
Bronze  age,  cremation  din  ing, 
108. 

Bronze  age,  life  of  the,  243- 
246. 

bronze,  percentage  of,  24  i. 
Brunn  I,  skull  429,  430. 

Briinn  II,  skull,  429,  450. 
Briix,  skull  of,  425,  427,  42*8. 
Buhl  ice,  20. 

Burr’s  Hill  (R.  I.)  Indian 
cemetery,  350. 


457 


458 


INDEX 


C 

Caesar,  Julius,  5. 

Calaveras  skull,  295. 

Calvarial  height,  446. 

Canstatt,  skull  of,  412,  413. 
Carlyle  on  prehistoric  man,  151. 
Carnac-Menac,  227,  228. 
carrying  places,  123. 

Carso,  45,  48,  49. 

Carthage,  109. 
castelliere,  71. 
casting,  23S,  239. 
catacombs  at  Palermo,  107. 
cave  bear,  12. 

cave  bear  skull  with  Mouster- 
ian  axe,  49,  156. 
cave  burials,  53. 
cave  hyena,  12. 
cave-men,  44. 

cave  paintings,  Azilian,  193, 
194. 

cave  paintings,  colors  for,  47. 
cave  paintings,  Magdalenean, 
181-1S7. 
caverns,  44. 

Cliellean  axe,  154,  155. 
Chellean  period,  154,  155,  160. 
Cliibchuans,  341,  342. 

Children  of  Israel,  267,  268. 
Chinese  burial  customs,  96. 
Christian  symbols  upon  mega¬ 
liths,  85,  86. 

chronological  table,  between 
pp.  137-138. 

chronology  with  eight  ages, 
135. 

chronology  with  five  ages,  135. 
Cissbury  ring,  73. 
cists,  98,  99,  101,  105,  106. 
cists,  of  bronze  age,  105. 
cities,  Central  American,  113. 
cities,  walled,  109. 
city,  formation  of,  109. 
city  site,  112. 

clay  bisons  of  Tuc  d’Audobert, 
184. 

cliff  palace,  116. 

cloth,  American,  309-314. 

Codices,  Maya,  372,  377-380. 


coiled  ware  in  America  311. 
Columbus,  5. 

Combe-Capelle,  skeleton  of, 
450. 

commerce  in  the  Bronze  age, 

251. 

copper  objects,  Indian,  304-307. 
cornfields  of  American  In¬ 
dians,  77-79. 

coups-de-poing,  154,  155. 
coups-de-poing  in  Africa,  278. 
crannogs,  69,  70,  209. 
crannogs  among  American  Ind¬ 
ians,  70. 

cremation  during  Bronze  age, 
108. 

Cretaceous,  8,  9. 

Cretan  labyrinth,  249. 

Crete,  249. 
crevasses,  13. 

Cro-magnon,  man  of,  171,  172. 
Cro-magnon  race,  416,  417,  418, 
419,  420,  421,  431,  450. 
cromlechs,  S3,  102. 

Cuzco  man/ 289. 

Cyprolithic  Age,  134,  234-238. 
Cyprolitliic  age  in  Europe,  305, 
306. 

Cyprolithic  culture  in  Amer¬ 
ica,  absence  of,  308,  324. 

D 

Daun  ice,  20. 

Delaware  Valley.  126,  294,  295. 
Dighton  Itock,  362. 
Dinotherium,  148. 

Diprothomo  platensis,  291-293. 
displacement  during  excava¬ 
tions,  35. 
distaff,  215. 

disturbance  of  bones,  34,  35. 
dog,  Neolithic,  204. 
dolina,  49. 

dolmen,  83,  102,  103,  104. 
dress  during  Bronze  age,  249, 

252,  254. 

dress,  Neolithic,  217,  218. 
Dryopithicus,  144,  145. 

Dubois,  Eugen,  445. 


INDEX 


459 


E 

Easter  Island,  281. 

Egypt,  flints  in,  271. 
Egyptians,  4,  3G. 

Egisheim  skull,  431,  432. 
elephant,  30. 

Elephas  antiquus,  12,  148. 
Elephas  meridianalis,  14S. 
Elephas  primigeneus,  12. 
enceinte,  103. 

Engis,  cave  of,  386. 
Eoanthropus,  442,  443,  444, 
452. 

Eocene,  8,  9. 

Eolithic  Age,  133,  139. 

Eolithic  Pompeii,  an,  118. 
eoliths,  10. 

eoliths,  characteristics  of,  140- 
142. 

eoliths,  users  of,  144. 

Equus  antiquus,  12. 
Erechtlieum,  111. 

Erechtheus,  palace  of,  111. 
Euphrates,  5. 

European  prehistory,  For  rev’s 
picture  of,  265. 

Europe  in  study  of  prehistory, 
125. 

F 

fairy  ring,  72. 
fear  of  body,  106. 

Finland,  20. 

first  man  (Strepyan),  148-153. 
flint  artifacts,  early  ideas  con¬ 
cerning,  384,  385. 

Formosa,  aborigines  of,  280. 
forts,  72,  SO. 

forts,  American  Indian,  75. 
funeral  ships  among  Scandi¬ 
navians,  97. 

Furfooz,  grotto  of,  433. 
Furfooz  race,  433,  435. 

G 

gallery  graves,  99,  100,  101. 
Galley  Hill  group,  425,  431, 
450. 


Galley-Hill  skull,  426. 

Garden  of  Eden,  128. 
Geological  chronology,  6,  16, 

18. 

Gschnitz  ice,  20. 

Gibraltar  skull,  414,  415,  416. 
glacial  action,  results  of,  13. 
glacial  man  in  America,  2S5- 

289. 

glacial  pebbles,  characteristics 
of,  15. 

glyphs,  373-377. 
gold,  use  of  among  Indians, 
308. 

Golden  age,  12S. 
graves,  excavation  of,  93,  94. 
graves,  gallery,  99,  100,  101. 
graves,  Neolithic,  88. 
graves,  position  of  bodies  in, 
89. 

Grenelle,  site  of,  433. 

Grimaldi  race,  416  421,  422. 
Guatemala,  4. 

H 

Haarlem,  lake  of,  120. 

Haeckel,  Ernst,  and  Pithecan¬ 
thropus,  443,  444. 

Hallstatt  site,  257. 

Homo  heidelbergensis,  436,  437, 
438,  439,  440,  441,  450,  451. 
handle  of  pot  origin  of,  221, 

009 

hearth,  remains  of,  58-61. 
Heidelberg  jaw,  152. 
Heidelberg  man,  436. 
Herculaneum,  117. 

Herodotus  on  lake  dwellings, 
69. 

Hesperopithecus  hare  ldcooki, 
449. 

Hippocrates  on  lake  dwellings, 
69. 

Hissarlik,  111. 

history,  distinction  from  pre¬ 
history,  2. 
hockerstellung,  92. 
hog-backs,  15. 

Hopi,  pueblo  of,  115. 


460 


INDEX 


Horace,  2,  128. 

horse,  12. 

house-building  among  Ameri¬ 
cans,  333-335. 

Huns,  picture  of,  267. 

Huxley’s  opinion  concerning 
the  Neandertal  skeleton,  3S9. 

Ha  aena  spelaea,  12. 

hydroscope,  121. 

I 

ice-free  areas,  11,  19. 

ice-free  intervals,  23. 

Iliad,  3. 

mca,  342. 

incineration  in  bronze  age,  96. 

Indian  burials,  353. 

Indian  habitations  of  America, 
296. 

Indian  mounds,  354,  356,  357, 
358,  359. 

Indians,  a  homogenous  race, 
284. 

intrusive  burials,  105,  108. 

intrusive  remains,  34. 

Ireland,  crannogs  in,  70. 

J 

Japan,  prehistory  of,  79. 

Japanese  kitchen  middens,  279. 

K 

Kafrnak,  228. 

Karst,  45,  48,  49. 

Kent’s  Hole,  England,  385,  386. 

kitchen  middens,  Baltic,  194- 
197. 

kitchen  middens,  Casco  Bay, 
Maine,  53. 

kitchen-middens,  Danish,  56, 
194-199. 

kitchen  middens  in  crannogs, 

71. 

kitchen  middens  in  Japan,  279. 

Kiva,  335. 

Koropokgaru  of  Ainu  legends, 

2S0. 

Krapina  skeletons,  394,  395, 
396,  397,  398. 


L 

Labrador,  20. 
labyrinth,  Cretan,  249. 

La  Cliapelle  aux  Saints,  skele¬ 
ton  of,  403-407. 
lake  deposits,  28. 
lake  dwellings,  64-68. 
lamps,  Magdalenian,  187. 

La  Naulette,  386. 

Lang-son,  Tonkin,  excavations 
at,  279. 

Latene,  station  at,  261-263. 
Legends,  primitive,  1. 

Leif  Erikson,  362. 

Le  Moustier  skeleton,  399-401. 
loess,  19,  30,  31. 
loom,  Indian,  313-316. 
loom  weights,  Indian,  301. 
Longs  Hill  skull,  295. 
Lucretius,  128-129. 
lures.  Bronze  Age  war  trump¬ 
ets,  256. 

M 

Magdalenian  art,  176-187. 
Magdalenian  period,  176-187. 
Maiden  Castle,  73. 
man,  representations  of  in 
Magdalenian,  185,  186. 
manubrium  of  an  Eolith,  140. 
Marietta,  Ohio,  mounds  in, 
359,  360. 

Mas  d’Azil,  189,  190. 

Mashona  land,  Cyclopean  ruins 
in,  273-275. 
matrix,  35,  36. 

Maumbry  Ring,  73. 

Max,  Gabriel,  and  Pithecan¬ 
thropus,  445. 

Maya  Codices,  372,  377-380. 
Maya-Quiche,  341,  344,  372, 
373. 

Maya  temples,  preservation  of, 
350. 

Maya  writing,  377-380. 
megalithic  monuments,  S0-S5. 
menhirs,  82. 
menhirs  in  Africa.  272. 
Mesolithic  Age,  134. 


INDEX 


461 


Mesopotamians,  4. 
methods  ot  ascertaining  age  ol 
remains,  33. 

migrations  from  Asia  to 
Europe  and  Africa,  269. 
Miocene,  7. 

Mnemonic  songs,  Indian,  364- 
369. 

monoliths.  Neolithic,  225. 
More,  Sir  Thomas,  107. 
mound  exploration,  American 
Indian,  99. 

mounds  and  tumuli,  95. 
mounds,  Casco  Bay,  53,  56, 

57. 

mounds,  Chinese,  355,  356. 
mounds,  Danish,  56. 
mounds,  Indian,  354,  356,  357, 

358,  359. 

mounds  in  Ohio,  builders  of, 

359. 

mounds  at  Marietta,  Ohio,  75, 
76. 

Mousterian  axe,  162,  163. 
Mousterian  period,  161-167. 
Mousterian  points,  163,  164. 
Mycenae,  4. 

Mycenean,  36. 


N 

Neandertal  man,  450. 

Neandertal  man,  the  mod  re¬ 
cent  discoveries,  408-411. 

Neandertal  skeleton,  50,  387- 
389. 

necropoles,  87,  99,  101,  107. 

Neolithic,  129. 

Neolithic  Age,  130,  131. 

Neolithic  culture,  theory  that 
it  came  from  Asia,  201. 

Neolithic  dress,  217,  218. 

Neolithic  houses,  206-209. 

new  world,  America  as  a,  2S3. 

New  World  populated  from 
the  Old,  382,  383. 

Norse  colonies  in  America, 
361,  362. 

Notharctus,  9. 


O 

Obelisks,  102. 

Obermeier’s  chronology,  138. 
Objects  lying  under  water,  119- 
124. 

Oceanica,  prehistory  of,  281. 
Odyssey,  3. 

Ofnet,  grotto  of,  433,  434,  435. 
Oscans,  skeletons  of,  at  Pom¬ 
peii,  94. 
ossuaries,  107. 

P 

Paedopithex,  145. 
palafittes,  64-68. 

Paleolithic,  129. 

Paleolithic  Age,  130. 

Palermo,  catacombs  at,  107. 
Palestine,  prehistory  of,  277- 
278. 

Pan  vetus,  153,  443. 

Penck,  16,  18. 

Pentaur,  Song  of,  3. 
percussion  of  an  Eolith,  140. 
periods  of  human  culture,  no¬ 
menclature,  136,  137. 
Peruvian  Indians,  341,  342. 
petroglyplis,  American,  361- 
364,  371-376. 
pfahlbauten,  64-68. 
pictographs,  370,  371. 
pig,  204. 

pile  villages,  64-68. 

Piltdown  man,  436,  441,  442, 
443,  444,  452. 

Piltdown  skull,  153. 
pipes,  Indian  stone,  300. 
Pithecanthropus,  10,  146,  147, 
277. 

Pithecanthropus  erectus,  445, 
446,  447,  448,  452,  454. 
Pizzuglii,  71. 
plummets,  301. 

Pompeii,  77,  117. 

Pompeii,  Eolithic,  143. 
post-glacial  action,  19,  23. 
post-glacial  rivers,  23. 
pottery,  classification  of,  328- 
330. 


462 


INDEX 


pottery,  Indian,  316. 
pottery,  origin  of,  220. 
problematic  stone  objects,  300. 
pre-Cliellean  period,  152. 
precolumbian,  5. 
prehistoric  dwellings,  shape 
of,  336. 

pre-Indians  in  America,  285. 
pre-Indian  remains  in  South 
America,  289-293. 

Pueblo  of  Hopi,  115. 

Pueblo  of  Taos,  114. 

Pueblo  of  Zuni,  115. 

Pueblos,  115,  337-339. 

Puritan  excavations  of  Indian 
graves,  351,  352. 

Puritans,  339,  340. 

Puritans  in  New  England, 
268. 

pyramids,  102. 

Q 

Quaternary,  7,  19. 

Quichuas,  341,  342. 

R 

Ramesseum  at  Thebes,  3. 
reindeer,  12. 
remains,  age  of,  33. 

Rhodesia,  South  Africa,  117. 
river  deposits,  28. 
river  terraces,  19,  24,  28. 
rivers,  search  of,  120. 
rock  shelters,  37-40. 

Rome,  founding  of,  109. 

S 

Sahara,  western,  109. 

Sakkara  and  Gizeh,  flints  at, 
271. 

sand  dunes,  19,  31. 

San  Maurizio,  near  Porlezza, 
119. 

scharrachs,  72-74,  80,  209,  225. 
Schliemann,  Dr.,  111. 
Schwalbe,  Gustav,  446. 
Schwalbe’s  criticism  of  Dipro- 
tliomo,  291,  292. 


Schweizersbild,  39-43. 

Scotland,  crannogs  in,  70. 
Selenka,  Emil  and  Mine.,  449. 
shards,  200. 

shards  showing  basket  stitch, 
203. 

shards  with  imprints  of  tex¬ 
tiles,  importance  of,  323. 
shell  artifacts,  Indian,  301- 
304. 

sinkers,  301. 
sink  holes,  48. 

situlae  of  Hallstatt  period, 
258-260. 

skeleton  in  armor,  307,  362. 
Solutrean  period,  173,  174,  175, 
176. 

Song  of  Pentaur,  3. 

South  American  claims  for 
origin  of  man,  294. 

Spanish  conquistadores,  340, 
341. 

spear-thrower,  Magdalenean, 
ISO. 

spindle,  215. 

spy  skeleton,  391,  392,  393,  394. 
stag  people,  Azilian,  191. 
stone  artifacts  Indian,  295. 
stone  coffins,  98. 
stone  implements,  American, 
122. 

Stonehenge,  103,  104,  108,  227- 
234. 

Strepyan  period,  148-151. 
Sudbury  calvaria,  413. 
superstitions  concerning  body, 
106. 

Swedish  rampart,  72. 

Syria,  prehistory  of,  277. 

T 

Tarandus  rangifer,  12. 
Tarsius,  10. 

temple  architecture  in  Central 
America,  345-347. 
temple  carvings  of  Central 
America,  345-347. 
temples.  Central  American, 
113,  339-349. 


INDEX 


463 


temples,  Neolithic,  226. 
terremare,  71. 

Tertiary,  7,  10,  13. 
Tetraprothomo,  293. 

Thinac,  island  of  in  Brittany, 
99. 

Thomas  More.  Sir,  107. 
Thomsen,  Christian,  129. 
Tiber,  120. 

Tigris,  5. 
tin,  238. 

Tiryns,  110. 

Tonkin,  prehistory  of,  279. 
trade  routes  of  Bronze  age. 
251. 

traditions,  1. 

transition  skull  between  Pithe¬ 
canthropus  and  Neandertal, 
453. 

transition  to  Neolithic,  197- 
200. 

tree  houses,  62.  63. 

Trenton  gravels,  287,  299. 
Troy,  122. 

Troy,  site  of,  111. 
tumuli,  95,  101-103. 

Turkish  fortress.  72. 
turquoise  mine  of  Sinai,  27*. 

V 

undisturbed  deposits,  33. 
ur.  12. 

urn  burials,  106.  107. 

ITrsus  speheus,  12. 

TJrsus  spelseus  with  Mouste- 
rian  axe,  166. 


V 

Vero,  Fla.,  human  remains, 
288,  289. 

Vesuvius,  77. 

villages  in  Palestine,  338. 
villages,  Indian,  336-338. 
Viking  ships,  97. 

Virchows’  opinion  concerning 
the  Neandertal  skeleton, 
390. 

Volk,  on  ghicial  man,  287,  288. 


W 

wallburg,  73. 
walled  cities.  109. 
wampum,  302-304. 
weaving,  Indian,  309-313. 
weaving,  Neolithic,  210-218. 
Webster  ruin  in  Rhodesia. 
274. 

wild  horse  period  (Solutrean). 
173. 

winter  counts,  Indian,  364-367. 
writing,  3. 

Wurm  ice,  19. 


Y 

Yap.  Caroline  Island,  117. 
Yucatan.  4. 


Z 

Zuni,  pueblo  of,  115. 


I 


I 


